BOOK LUST

I'm Moving - Please Follow Me!

2011-10-11T14:28:00.001-07:00

I'm calling it quits. Sort of.

When I started this blog a couple years ago, I envisioned a group of friends sitting over virtual cups of coffee and tattered paperbacks, chatting about books and swapping them with each other. It never really panned out to become that, although lots of great reviews were posted by various contributors, most who quickly came and went.

Now it's time for me to take this in a slightly different direction. I still love reading and adore talking about the books I read, so that's not going to change. However, I've started a new blog that is mine and mine alone, in part because I've been fortunate enough to have been contacted by a number of authors and publishers lately asking me to review their books, and it's made me want to start fresh elsewhere, where it's just me doing the talking.

Many thanks to the gals who contributed here over the last couple of years; I've appreciated your reviews and recommendations.

I hope you'll follow me to my new digs! Check it out and subscribe: Turn the Page

Thank you!!

The Diaries of Adam and Eve

2011-09-30T10:46:00.000-07:00

The Diaries of Adam and Eve by Mark Twain

As an avid reader and a book blogger, I should have been more on top of the fact that this week has been designated as Banned Books Week, an annual event sponsored by the American Library Association celebrating the freedom to read and the importance of the First Amendment. My personal thoughts on banned books are simple: I believe that, while not all reading material is appropriate for everyone, it should be up to individuals to decide what is appropriate for them (and their children) to read. Censorship - which amounts to a deprivation of information based on a particular person's or group's own moral agenda - is wrong, pure and simple. Let the people have access to all information, all opinions, all accounts, and let them decide for themselves what is worthy, what is true, and what has value.

I only recently became aware of Eve's Diary, a soliloquy written by Mark Twain very early in the twentieth century. Apparently, Eve's Diary was banned from a Massachusetts library for over 100 years because of the illustrations, which depict Eve au naturale. The illustrations are extremely tame and mild by today's standards (hamburger joint ads are far more racy), but throughout the 1900s they were considered pornographic.

Eve's Diary, originally published as its own volume, is the second part of the combined volumes of The Diaries of Adam and Eve. This is Mark Twain's "translation from the originals" of the first two human beings' diaries, and they are a hoot! Witty and utterly charming, Adam is a rather grumpy man who finds himself both irritated and perplexed by "the new Creature" (Eve) who talks incessantly, has grand ideas about everything, and is prone to "shedding water from the holes she looks out of." Eventually Eve "catches" a baby, but Adam, having never seen a baby before, can make neither heads nor tales of it, first convinced it is some type of fish, then a kangaroo, then a bear. Eve's diary reveals her to be an emotional, passionate lover of beauty and animals, and a somewhat frivolous and childish girl-woman who can't understand why Adam keeps trying to get away from her.

I loved this book. Really enjoyable, and a very quick, easy read.

Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter (novel)

2011-09-18T20:08:00.000-07:00

Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter by Tom Franklin

The opening scene introduces the reader to Larry Ott, an odd, middle-aged loner who lives by himself in the house he grew up in, tending his mothers chickens and going to work each day to the auto-mechanic garage inherited from his father, though he rarely receives any business. Larry is ostracized by his entire community because of the disappearance of a girl last known to have been with Larry twenty-five years prior. The girl was never found, her disappearance never solved, and Larry never charged, but the rumors about him have grown into near mythology. Now another girl has disappeared, and all eyes are again on "Scary Larry." A shocking act of violence against Larry himself, however, begins to unravel long-held secrets, especially those held by Larry's former boyhood friend, Silas, now the town constable.

The story examines the question of how damning circumstantial evidence can be, especially in the court of public opinion, and how damaging utter alienation can be to a person.

Suspenseful, haunting, and vividly told, this story kept me reading late into the night. Highly recommended.

A Good and Perfect Gift (memoir)

2011-09-10T10:14:00.000-07:00

A Good and Perfect Gift by Amy Julia Becker

I was contacted by the publicist for the the publishing house that released this book earlier this month, asking if I would read it and feature it on my blog. Always interested in personal accounts of raising a child with Down syndrome, I was happy to oblige.

In this book, Amy Julia Becker tells a somewhat familiar story: full of hopes and dreams, she gives birth to a baby, shortly thereafter learns the baby has Down syndrome, experiences the shock and grief so many of us parents experience with that diagnosis, struggles to come to terms with it all, and eventually finds some semblance of peace. On a very general level, her story is not so different from my own, and so on a very general level I was able to relate.

However, her entire struggle to come to terms with her daughter's diagnosis is framed within her devout Christianity, and to this I could not at all relate. She struggles to reconcile her daughter's "imperfection" with the belief that her daughter is created in God's image. She struggles to find some divine meaning in her daughter's Down syndrome: is it a lesson from God? A punishment? A divine reward?

Additionally, Amy Julia and her husband are both highly educated high-achievers, and the author struggles mightily with the knowledge that her daughter, by virtue of having Down syndrome, has cognitive impairments. Although at some point in the book, she attempts to convey finally coming to terms with that and being able to see her daughter's value apart from her intelligence and abilities, I never got the sense that she actually did find a way to separate her daughter's value from her abilities. Throughout the latter half of the book, she spends a lot of time talking about all of her daughter's accomplishments (and at one point, when her daughter was a mere 14 months old, she and her husband buy a special treadmill for their daughter, determined to get her walking - I absolutely cringed at this). In fact, by her telling, her daughter does seem on the higher end of ability as far as Down syndrome goes, but I have to wonder how she would feel if her daughter were one of the children with Down syndrome who didn't walk until age 3, was non-verbal at age 5, and so forth.

Amy Julia Becker is a talented writer, but her story didn't resonate with me. I understand that she wanted to tell her story from her perspective, but framing it from such a devoutly Christian perspective constructs a barrier between her and non-Christian readers/parents of children with Down syndrome. This is not the worst memoir I've read about having a child with Down syndrome, but not the best either.

My copy is up for grabs if anyone wants it.

The Girl's Guide to Homelessness (memoir)

2011-09-06T11:44:00.001-07:00

The Girl's Guide to Homelessness by Brianna Karp

There are people who have such sordid, distasteful stories from their pasts, that one has to wonder how such stories can be true, and not imagined, made up, or at least embellished. Brianna Karp is someone with a trailer-full of such stories. Growing up as a Jehovah's Witness (a sect which she vehemently calls a "cult"), she relays stories of terrible abuse and neglect at the hands of her parents. Headstrong and determined, however, she carves out an independent, successful life for herself in young adulthood, only to fall victim to the economic downturn of the last few years, losing her job and being forced to move back in with her bipolar, abusive mother. After a dramatic confrontation, Brianna is thrown out of the house by her mother, and with nowhere to go, she ends up living in a trailer (inherited from her biological father upon his gruesome suicide) in the parking lot of a local Walmart - officially "homeless." Equipped with a laptop (and nearly-free WiFi from a nearby Starbucks), a cell phone, and a P.O. Box, she spends her days job-hunting, sometimes picking up temp work, and blogging about her life as a homeless person. Along the way, she meets a man online who runs a website dealing with homeless issues, and they quickly fall in love, but this also ends badly.

Some quick research online reveals that there are people who claim to know Brianna and call into question the truth of the stories she outlines in her book. Is everything she claims about her childhood - or even her present circumstances - completely true? I have no idea. I do know that her stories from her childhood and young adulthood - especially those concerning her family - rival my own stories - stories of which a lot of people would probably have a hard time believing (right down to Brianna's mother making her drink dishwashing detergent for some infraction; my own mother made me drink Ivory Liquid detergent for telling a lie when I was all of seven years old).

In any case, I was drawn in by her utterly violent and dysfunctional upbringing, which resonated with my own childhood memories. The main reason I bought this book in the first place, though, is that her story takes place right in my city. She grew up in the town where I live, attended high school right down the street, and set up camp as a homeless person in the parking lot of the Walmart I've shopped at hundreds of times. It was a little surreal reading about places so close by and familiar to me.

She brings to light the plight of the homeless person and attempts to break down stereotypes, preconceived notions, misconceptions and prejudices towards the homeless, reminding us that we on the outside of homelessness have no idea what each homeless person's story is, and to make sweeping assumptions is wrong. She also illustrates how easy it can be for someone to lose everything, especially if they have little to begin with. Perhaps fewer of us are immune than we imagine.

If the book remained focused on this topic, it would be a better book. I enjoyed reading about her resourcefulness and ingenuity, and her outspokenness about prejudice against the homeless. Unfortunately, it strays off course about halfway through and becomes focused on her love affair with the man she meets over the internet - a love affair that, I think, anyone older and wiser can see from the beginning is doomed. Her writing is gritty and real - and definitely the voice you would expect from a street-wise yet somewhat naive and immature twenty-something girl.

It's a quick read, and worth it, I think, for the sake of making the reader think about homelessness.

Into Thin Air (non-fiction/memoir)

2011-09-03T10:15:00.001-07:00

Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer

I didn't want to read this book. I'm not particularly a fan of adventure-type stories, and I have no interest in mountain climbing or Mount Everest. Even when my friend chose this book for this month's discussion for our book club, I wrote it off as one I'd pass on. So I picked up a different book from my to-read shelf (A Visit From the Goon Squad; have you read it? Thoughts?) and tried to read it, but try as I might, couldn't get into it and abandoned it about fifty pages in (that's generally the chance I'll give a book; if it doesn't grab me within the first fifty pages, I quit. There are too many good books to be read to suffer through a book that isn't enjoyable). At that point, I decided I'd give Into Thin Air a try.

I could not put this book down. In it, Jon Krakauer, then a pretty successful journalist, tells his personal account of the Mt. Everest disaster in May, 1996. Hired by Outside magazine to write an article about the commercialization of Everest expeditions, Krakauer, himself an accomplished mountaineer, convinces the magazine editors to put up the funds allowing him to actually go on one of these commercial expeditions to the summit of Mt. Everest, thereby allowing him to (a) give a firsthand account of the experience, and (b) fulfill a long-held dream of his to climb Mt. Everest. In sharp detail, he tells about that ill-fated Mt. Everest expedition, which ended up claiming the lives of twelve people.

This book really got to me. It's very suspenseful and graphic, and in all seriousness, it pervaded my dreams at night; just about every night during the week or so I spent reading this, visions on snow-covered mountains, glaciers, cliffs and crevasses filled my dreams. It's still very difficult for me to fathom what motivates certain people to engage in such sport that, really, is not only extremely dangerous, but just plain miserable.

Excellent book. It was published way back in 1997, so it's already been widely read, but if you haven't read it, I highly recommend it.

This Life Is In Your Hands (memoir)

2011-08-23T22:00:00.000-07:00

This Life Is In Your Hands: One Dream, Sixty Acres, and a Family Undone by Melissa Coleman

In times of overload, I've joked about going to live "off the grid." Don't most of us, just once in a while, fantasize of abandoning the stress and frustration of modern, busy life in favor of something simpler, of getting back to basics? So when I read a book review of this new memoir recently about a family who did just that, I was intrigued. Plus, you know I have a weakness for a good memoir.

In 1968, Eliot and Sue Coleman, a young, idealistic east coast couple, both from white collar, middle class families, decided to shed materialism and modern living, with all its conveniences and pitfalls, and live by the fruits of their own labors, indebted to no one. They were part of a growing movement at the time of "back to the landers" or "homesteaders," people who were choosing to literally go off the grid and live off the land. The Colemans dreamed of a simpler and more fulfilling life, believing that being completely self-sufficient by way of living as completely as possible by the results of their own hard labor would be far more rewarding than living a typical modern life tied to materialism, economy, and unhealthful living. For $2,000 they bought sixty acres of land from Helen and Scott Nearing, natural living gurus at the time, who cultivated quite a following with their books, Living the Good Life and Continuing the Good Life. The young Colemans built a small house on their land with their own hands for $680, with no electricity or running water, and that would be their home for the next ten years.

The author, the Coleman's first child, born in that small cabin shortly after its completion, recounts her early childhood, growing up on that land, far away from modern society, as her parents cultivated what would become a very successful organic farm. Their idyllic life gradually gives way to its own strains and hardships, and finally tragedy, as the Coleman's second daughter, the author's younger sister, drowns in the pond her father dug for irrigation. You know from the beginning of the book that the baby sister drowns; it's just a matter of learning when. Soon after, an already strained marriage comes to a bitter end, and the author's mother retreats into depression. Finally, their "good life" on the farm comes to an end.

If there's any lesson to be had from all of this, it's that life follows you wherever you go.

Well worth the read.

The Shape of the Eye (memoir)

2011-08-19T08:07:00.000-07:00

The Shape of the Eye by George Estreich

A few weeks ago, in my email inbox was an email from a man I'd never heard of before, asking me if I would be willing to read a book he wrote and recently had published, and to write a review here on Book Lust. I still don't know how he stumbled upon my book blog, and I was flattered that a bona fide author would think that anything I had to say about a book might actually carry some weight with anyone. Without hesitation, I agreed to read and review his book because I was flattered to be asked, because I like the idea of having any sort of contact with an actual author (being a wannabe writer myself), but mostly because the subject matter of his book is near and dear to me.

I have read numerous memoirs about having a child with Down syndrome. The Shape of the Eye is, hands down, the best one I've read. Where Jennifer Graf-Groneberg's Road Map to Holland was a lifeline to me in the days and weeks immediately following my son Finnian's birth, diagnosis of Down syndrome, and major surgery as a newborn, soothing me and assuring me that the grief I was feeling was normal and that it would pass in time, The Shape of the Eye examines that grief, without judgment.

Like so many parents of children with Down syndrome, George Estreich and his wife were shocked by their second daughter's diagnosis soon after her birth, and like so many of us, they found themselves suddenly thrust into the alien territory of raising a child who is different, who is largely, in an abstract way, seen as defective by society. His book, which he spent nearly a decade doing research for and writing, is a personal, heartfelt, often witty, account of raising a child with Down syndrome. More than that, however, it is also a historical account of what has shaped our attitudes about Down syndrome - the truths, half-truths, non-truths, contradictions, and paradoxes. This is a book not only about Down syndrome, but about family, and ethnicity, preconceived notions, and what it means to belong.

Mr. Estreich, a stay-at-home dad and a poet by profession, is an extremely gifted writer. I could not stop turning the pages and throughout the book often felt as if I could easily sit down with him over coffee and shoot the shit about Down syndrome, about parenting, about family, about life.

Five stars. I cannot recommend this book highly enough.

Autobiography of a Face (memoir)

2011-08-14T20:47:00.000-07:00

Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealy

It's funny . . . I picked up a paperback edition of this book a couple of years ago and, like so many books I buy (buying books is a vice with me), it sat on my to-be-read shelf for a long time, untouched, while I made my way through dozens of other books. Eventually I did a book purging, as I occasionally do, attempting to honestly assess the likelihood of my ever actually reading each book sitting on my to-be-read shelf. This one was given away with a stack of other books, never having been opened by me.

Then my book club chose Truth & Beauty by Ann Patchett for this month's discussion, and my interest in Autobiography of a Face was rekindled. Now I wanted to know more about this Lucy Grealy, the friend Ann Patchett wrote about, and the book that made Lucy famous. Fortunately, I didn't have to re-buy the book; a friend had a copy and graciously sent it to me. I started it yesterday morning and finished it right at dinnertime today. Yes, it was that absorbing; I couldn't put it down.

"I spent five years of my life being treated for cancer, but since then I've spent fifteen years being treated for nothing other than looking different from everyone else. It was the pain from that, from feeling ugly, that I always viewed as the great tragedy of my life. The fact that I had cancer seemed minor in comparison."

Diagnosed at age 9 with a rare form of cancer, Lucy went through a long, hellish ordeal of radiation and chemo, as well as an operation to remove the cancerous tumor from her face, which also necessitated removing a large portion of her lower jaw, leaving her disfigured. What followed were years and years of failed reconstructive surgeries and a self-loathing, both for being what she perceived as ugly, and for allowing herself to be so weak as to care that she was ugly.

What I found so engrossing was how deeply introspective she seemed to be at all times. Whether she actually was so clear of thought as a child experiencing the things she later writes about, or whether the insights only came to her later as she wrote of her experiences, it's hard to know, but in any case, her book is extremely reflective and insightful. A lot of it resonated with me, also, in the sense that she expresses very movingly how the aftermath of cancer can sometimes be more difficult, more painful, than cancer and cancer treatment themselves, and just how tied one's physical and/or aesthetic condition is to one's sense of worth.

When I read Truth & Beauty, I did not like the person Ann Patchett wrote about as her friend, Lucy Grealy. I feel like I have a much better understanding of Lucy now, and finally the compassion - and even admiration - I was unable to find for her when I was reading T & B. I really think that Ann Patchett's book should not be read without also reading Autobiography of a Face.

Movie Review: The Help

2011-08-14T10:41:00.001-07:00

When a movie comes out based on a book that my book club has read, we like to get a group together to go see the movie. This past Friday night, a handful of us went to see The Help, based on Kathryn Stockett's 2009 novel, which quickly became a bestseller and a book club fave. Without being redundant and giving a synopsis of the story again (which you can read here in my review of the book), I will say that the movie was very good - better than I thought it would be. I was expecting a sort of shallow, aesthetically pleasing version that only skimmed the surface of the original story; I don't know why, except that the movie poster gives the impression of light-heartedness and not drama or emotion. The movie was great, though: the characters were all believable (Ron Howard's daughter, Dallas Howard, did an amazing job as the horrible Hilly Holbrook), and the sets, costumes and script were authentic. I think this movie could stand on its own even without having read the book.

Face of Hope (memoir)

2011-08-11T16:36:00.001-07:00

Face of Hope by Carol Guscott

On an ordinary day in July of 1994, Carol Guscott went to work at her lumber yard in her native Jamaica, where two men attacked her, pouring battery acid in her eyes and on her face, leaving her blind and disfigured. This is her story in her own words of coming to America searching for physical, emotional, and spiritual healing. Over the course of many years, she faced the anguish of looking different, of learning to live without sight, of undergoing dozens of surgical procedures, and all the while, barely scraping by financially but for the charity of others through her own fundraising efforts and word of mouth. Through it all, she maintains an unshakable faith that God is looking after her, and her ordeal and trials serve a larger purpose.

In all honesty, this is not a book I would have sought out. It was given to me by the author herself, who is a friend of a friend, and she asked me to read it and review it on my blog and just generally get the word out so other people will read it. While I appreciate her perseverance in the face of so much adversity, the heavily faith-based flavor is not something that appeals to me, nor am I swayed to "see God at work in the course of my life," as she entreats her readers to do in the book's introduction. I think being so heavy on Christian faith, this book is limited to a very niche audience: like-minded Christians.

Nevertheless, read it and decide for yourself; it might just be your cup of tea.

Truth & Beauty: A Friendship (memoir)

2011-08-07T13:36:00.000-07:00

Truth & Beauty: A Friendship by Ann Patchett

What is especially unique about this memoir is that it's not anyone's life story, or even, really, an anecdote from somebody's life, as memoirs so often are. If this book could have another appropriately descriptive title, it might be Autobiography of a Friendship.

Still, it's not a typical friendship. It's the story - really, the complete life cycle, from beginning to end - of the friendship between the author, Ann Patchett, and Lucy Grealy, best known for her book, Autobiography of a Face, which recounts her experience with a rare cancer with which she was diagnosed in childhood which left her severely disfigured, and the physical and emotional aftermath. Ann and Lucy met in college, but it wasn't until they became roommates while attending postgraduate school that the friendship between them was really born. Spanning almost two decades, during which both women become bestselling writers, always underlying the friendship is Lucy's desperate, nearly suffocating need for love, acceptance, and adoration, and ultimately, her self-destructive behavior that ends the friendship with absolute finality.

Knowing the ongoing ordeal Lucy existed under as a result of her childhood cancer, I wanted to have compassion for her, and if looking at her through a black and white lens, it's very easy to chalk up her "issues" to her being so victimized by circumstances beyond her control. Just below the surface of obviousness, though, was a person I found very difficult to actually like. She was manipulative, selfish, demanding, insensitive, narcissistic, and irresponsible.

This is not an uplifting read, but it is very thought-provoking. In addition to the spotlighted theme of friendship, threaded throughout the story are themes like perception, beauty, addiction, codependency, enabling, and the price of unconditional love. Lots to ponder.

Faithful Place (Crime/Mystery/Thriller)

2011-07-28T15:13:00.000-07:00

Faithful Place by Tana French

It's official, Tana French is one of my new favorite authors! She has quite a gift for spinning a story with intriguing twists and turns, and developing characters that seem real enough to touch.

Faithful Place is the third book in Ms. French's Dublin Murder Squad series - which are only loosely connected to each other. This book stars Det. Frank Mackey, an undercover cop first introduced in book II of the series, The Likeness. In that book he was merely a peripheral character, and a rather slick, unlikeable one at that. In Faithful Place, we get to know Frank much more intimately, and it turns out that, although extremely flawed, he's also very human and likable.

Twenty-two years ago, Frank Mackey, age 19, planned to run away to London with the love of his life, Rosie Daly. The night they planned to skip town together, though, Rosie never shows up. Instead, Frank finds a note penned by Rosie, indicating that she's decided to dump him and run off to make a life of her own. Broken-hearted, but determined to escape his toxic family, Frank walks away from Faithful Place that night anyway, and doesn't return until now, when a suitcase bearing Rosie's possessions and ferry tickets to London are found in a run-down, long ago abandoned house in their childhood neighborhood. What really happened to Rosie Daly all those years ago? Frank is determined to find out.

I kept turning pages, eating it all up and wanting more, and when the book finally came to a close, I just wanted more from this author! unfortunately, her next book isn't due out in the U.S. until March of 2012.

Five stars to this one - if you're a fan of this genre, you won't be disappointed.

A Stolen Life (memoir)

2011-07-14T21:18:00.000-07:00

A Stolen Life by Jaycee Dugard

Like probably most everyone else, I've been riveted by stories in magazines and in the news about Jaycee Dugard. And like probably most everyone else, I've had a morbid curiosity about what actually happened during her captivity. Her face once again graced the cover of last week's People magazine, and ABC televised an hour-long candid interview this past Sunday night between Jaycee and Diane Sawyer. I forgot to record the interview Sunday night but watched it in snippets throughout the day on Monday, and found myself often in awe, and often in tears. Her memoir was due to be released on Tuesday, so I preordered it on my iPad so it would download as soon as it became available, and it downloaded Monday evening. That night I read the first 100 pages without stopping.

This is her detailed account of what happened: how one June morning in 1991, she walked to the bus stop like on any other ordinary school day, only on this day, a man by the name of Phillip Garrido pulled up alongside her in his car, reached his hand out the window, and paralyzed her with a stun gun, and then, with the help of his wife, Nancy, abducted her, drove her to their home a couple hours away and proceeded to keep her in captivity in their backyard for the next eighteen years. Eighteen years! It's almost inconceivable. During this time, she becomes no less than Phillip Garrido's sex slave and bears two children by him, giving birth both times in the squalid backyard, the first time when she was only fourteen years old.

It is an utterly riveting read, and yet, extremely difficult and disturbing. What this girl endured was horrific, and I honestly don't think I could have read it had I not known that in the end, she triumphs.

I got the impression that the book is intentionally not over-edited; it has a very stream-of-consciousness tone to it and very much reads like a young girl pouring her heart and memories out. And yes, she does still come across as very young; her writing has a very adolescent tone to it, which makes perfect sense - she was abducted at the age of eleven, and in a big way began a state of almost suspended animation at that point, being robbed of all the ordinary life experiences that mature a person.

It's very much worth reading, but not for the faint-of-heart.

The Angel Experiment

2011-07-13T15:25:00.000-07:00

The Angel Experiment (Maximum Ride, Book 1) by James Patterson

"If you dare read this story you become part of the Experiment. I know it sounds a little mysterious- but it's all I can say for now," - Max.

Maximum Ride is a 14 year old girl who, as the oldest, leads a group of 5 other kids. With the help of the only adult they've ever trusted (who they now believe is dead), they are kidnapped from the lab where they have spent their short lives as experiments. 98% human and 2% avian, these children are stronger than average human adults, have powers and abilities in constant development, and ... they have WINGS!

As if these children don't have enough enough problems, they are being hunted by more genetically altered children who are part human, part wolf.

The book follows Max and her "family" as the youngest of the group has been kidnapped and taken back to the lab. In an effort to rescue her, the other members fight to stay ahead of their attackers and learn more about where they came from and why they are what they are.

I downloaded this book in December 2009 and just got around to reading it this week. I think I have read James Patterson in the past, but I can't remember the title, so I went into this book not knowing what to expect. I went into this blind - reading no descriptions or reviews - and was surprised that it was written for kids (recommended 7th grade and up).

The story was written well, the language clean and the violence and gore (fights between the bird like kids and the wolf like kids) were kept to a minimum. I actually enjoyed the book and I am anxious to see what my daughter thinks of the story as well.

Little House in the Big Woods

2011-07-10T20:55:00.001-07:00

Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder

I have been waiting for what seems like half a lifetime to have daughters I could share the Little House books with. They were a truly beloved part of my childhood; I first read the series when I was eight or so, and so began my long love affair with Laura Ingalls. I spent many years of my childhood dreaming of actually being her one day, I was so enamored with her version of life on the American frontier.

My twin girls will soon be seven, and my youngest daughter is approaching five, so I thought this summer would be high time I introduced them to Laura Ingalls Wilder. I read a chapter at a time to them, and we finished Little House in the Big Woods tonight. It didn't disappoint. It's interesting that even in this age of high technology and childhoods jam-packed with enriching, educational, and organized activities, the story of a simpler time, when little girls had corn cobs for dolls and lived in little two-room log houses, can still so enthrall modern-day children. Even my nine-year old son and fourteen-year old son often came in to listen when I was reading to the girls!

Little House in the Big Woods covers about a year in the life of a little girl named Laura, who lives with her Ma and Pa and two sisters, Mary and Baby Carrie, in a log house in the woods of Wisconsin. It describes the hard work that was required of everyone in the family in order to contribute to the family's well-being, including frank accounts of hog butchering and deer hunting - festive events in those times! - the humble manner in which they lived, the expectation that children behave (including a number of references to one child or another having his hide tanned), and the love they had for each other.

The Little House books are based on the author's early life, but the stories are admittedly embellished and certain things fictionalized to make a better story. Still, from historical accounts of Laura's actual life, apparently the books she is famous for having written (which she didn't begin writing until she was in her sixties!) do capture the essence of the life she lived in late nineteenth-century mid-west America.

I can't wait to get started on Farmer Boy with the girls!

If you haven't read these books since your own childhood, go ahead, read them again. You'll love them just as much now as you did then.

The Story of Beautiful Girl (novel)

2011-07-09T21:29:00.000-07:00

The Story of Beautiful Girl by Rachel Simon

On a stormy night in 1968, a young woman and an older black man arrive at the door of an aging widow's farmhouse. With them is a very newly born baby. The young woman is intellectually disabled; she has escaped the institution in which she has lived since childhood, with the help of her companion, who is deaf, to give birth to this baby, the result of a brutal rape at the hands of an institution staff member. Before the night is over, police, searching for the two escaped residents of "The School" as the institution is known, raid the widow's home and haul Lynnie, the young woman, back to the institution, but not before she manages to hide her newborn daughter in the old woman's attic, and her companion manages to escape into the woods.

The story follows the next forty-plus years, during which the old woman raises the baby, hiding the child's parentage and heritage; Lynnie survives many more years at the institution before it is finally closed down, living constantly with a hole in her heart for her baby, and Homan, her companion of that fateful night, spends years on the run, but always hungering to find his way back to Lynnie - or "Beautiful Girl" as he has named her - and the baby, who, although he didn't father, he did help deliver on that rainy night in 1968.

I really, really wanted to like this book more than I actually did. The premise drew me in, but I found that the way the author chose to present each chapter from a different character's point of view, and with several years lapsing between each chapter, it was difficult to become attached to any of the characters. It felt like there were too many time-gaps; I think the story could have been much more engaging had it been told entirely from a third-person omniscient narrative perspective, with a smoother, more filled in time-line. I also found the overall story to be just plain hard to believe; at its heart, it's a feel-good story with happy endings, and I didn't find it to be realistic given the subject matter and general premise of the story. Overall, it's a very readable book, but I think it could have been so much more.

My hardcover is up for grabs.

The Likeness (Crime/Mystery/Thriller)

2011-06-21T09:48:00.001-07:00

The Likeness by Tana French

Following up In The Woods, Ms. French brings us a new murder to solve from the perspective of Det. Cassie Maddox. A young woman, bearing not only an eerie resemblance to Det. Maddox, but also the name of an alias Det. Maddox used while working undercover, is found dead in an abandoned cottage. To solve this bizarre case, Det. Maddox goes undercover once again, slipping into the shoes and the life of the murdered woman in an attempt to solve the murder from the inside out. Lots of twists and turns develop; I was very much on the edge of my seat and left guessing to the end.

Though I was disappointed that some unresolved issues from In The Woods were not actually resolved in this follow-up novel - this isn't a sequel in the sense that it continues the story from the previous book; rather, it's an entirely new case with some of the same characters from the previous book - this was another book I could sink my teeth into and that had me turning pages late into the night.

Highly recommend for anyone who enjoys mystery/thrillers.

In the Woods (Crime/Mystery/Thriller)

2011-06-09T08:55:00.000-07:00

In the Woods by Tana French

Until I read the The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo trilogy last year, it had been years since I had read anything from the thriller/mystery genre, and I was reminded how much I enjoy it.

In the Woods takes us to modern day Dublin, Ireland, where Detectives Rob Ryan and Cassie Maddox, both rookies on the Murder Squad, take on the investigation of the brutal murder of a young girl. Twenty years before, Detective Ryan had ventured into the woods with his two best friends, and only he came out alive, his friends gone without a trace, and his memory wiped clean. Can the two events be related? In trying to solve the murder of the young girl, Det. Ryan attempts to delve into his own past and struggle to resurrect his memory of the day his friends disappeared - and the process takes a great toll on him.

Although I found the relationship between the two detectives unlikely, and aspects of the story somewhat unsatisfying, all in all, this was a book that I could sink my teeth into. The author has a gift for luscious descriptions and creating scenes that come alive. Full of suspense, it had me on the edge of my seat. I've always been extremely fascinated by forensic science, and this story is full of it. Much of it is disturbing; a lot of people talk about Alice Siebold's The Lovely Bones and the graphic nature of the young protagonist's murder and how repelling it is; if one is familiar with that book and has steered clear of it because of the content, this may be a book to steer clear of as well. However, if you like a good mystery/thriller, I highly recommend this one.

Life, Sex and Ideas: The Good Life Without God (Philosophy)

2011-05-30T20:41:00.000-07:00

Life, Sex and Ideas: The Good Life Without God by A.C. Grayling

Despite the title, this book is not an atheist manifesto, nor is it largely about sex. The author, a professor of philosophy at Oxford University, does devote a chapter to sex, and touches on religion throughout the book, but really, more than anything, it is a book about thinking and ideas. Grayling is a gifted essayist, and each chapter is actually an essay - most only two or three pages long - covering such topics as marriage, guns, utopia, suicide, nature, and dozens more. Although he makes clear to the reader where he stands, each chapter is a nugget of wisdom and delectable food for thought.

This is my first foray into philosophy and I loved it. Very stimulating and thought-provoking; I highly recommend it to anyone who is interested in opening their mind, or those who value open-mindedness, insightfulness, and introspection.

I'm keeping my copy - I liked it that much.

An Object of Beauty (novel)

2011-05-05T21:15:00.000-07:00

An Object of Beauty by Steve Martin

I am a huge fan of the multi-talented Steve Martin. There was a time when I knew him as only a comedian/comedic actor. Over time I discovered that he's also an accomplished musician and writer, among other things. When I came across Shopgirl, a novella by Steve Martin I gobbled it up and found one more reason to love him. Likewise, I loved The Pleasure of My Company.

An Object of Beauty centers around Lacey Yeager, a young, beautiful, ambitious woman who takes the art world of New York by storm, starting out at the bottom of the art-world food chain working in "the bins" at Sotheby's, and climbing her way up the ladder, not always honestly, until she opens a gallery of her own. She charms, sleeps, steals, and works her way to the top.

Of the three novels by Steve Martin that I've now read, this is my least favorite, partly because I felt out of my element, being extremely un-knowledgeable about art or the art world, and partly because I didn't find the main character likeable. She's shallow and crass and insensitive, and it was just hard to care what happened to her. I'm not even sure the story has a point - it kind of trails off into an unsatisfying ending, and I turned the final page thinking only, "Huh."

I'll still read more of his writing though!

This one's on my iPad, so I can't pass it along.

Exposure

2011-04-10T18:13:00.000-07:00

Exposure by Brandilyn Collins

We all have fears and the majority of us manage to work around them.

But what if you couldn't? What if your anxiety caused issues in your daily affairs? And what if your worst fears came true?

Kaycee Ray writes a newspaper column that pokes fun at her own paranoia. Her claustrophobia, her fear of bees, rollers coasters, dentists, heights ... the list goes on. Her paranoia helps her reach out to others, helps them overcome their own issues, but it also publicly alerts everyone to her less than reliable state of mind. The local police have come to expect her frantic phone calls of being "followed", of being "watched".

But when Kaycee stands alone in her house and a camera set on her table takes a picture of her - all by itself - she knows this is more than just her irrational fears talking to her. Then the child of a close friend runs away from home to live with Kaycee, but never makes it to her house. And pictures of a dead man, the smell of blood, the sound of footsteps and screams are all too real for her.

Kaycee thinks that she inherited her irrational fears from her mother, but in reality, she finds that her mom had more than a vivid imagination to fear.

This was a freebie on my kindle that I'd downloaded months ago. I'd begun the book several times but never got very far into the first chapter. I can't really tell you why, just that it hadn't spiked a real interest.

I sat down with it again, determined to get through it, and was somewhat surprised. It was definitely an interesting look into paranoia and fears that can stop a person cold. Having a fear of heights myself, I am familiar with the anxiety the author described. I was also drawn into the suspense and mystery behind the stories.

What I didn't enjoy? I'm not a fan of books that switch perspective from once chapter to the next. This book was really two stories - one of Kaycee and the happenings in her current day life, and one of a mafia run bank heist that involved a family with a sick child. The book goes on to bring the two stories together, but for me, it's just a personal peeve of mine to jump back and forth. I always tend to find one side more interesting than the other, so I tend to feel the book drags out.

This book is listed as Christian fiction, but religion did not play a huge part in the book. I actually read a review or two that expressed upset over the fact that it seemed to be missing.

The story itself was good, suspenseful and well thought out. I don't have much experience with the mystery/suspense genre, but it was an easy read for when I didn't have a lot of time to invest at each sitting. I did figure out the connection of the two stories fairly early in the book, is that normal? or just a sign of too much crime drama TV?? ;0)

The Uncoupling (a novel)

2011-04-09T20:15:00.000-07:00

The Uncoupling by Meg Wolitzer

I admit that a great many of the books I read come straight from the book reviews in the People magazine that is delivered through my mail slot every Thursday afternoon. This book was one of those; I saw the review in People and was so intrigued that I immediately downloaded it to my iPad and read it in three days.

Set in an average, if progressive, suburb of New Jersey, the story centers around certain faculty members of a local high school and their families. A new drama teacher is hired and for the annual winter play, she chooses Lysistrata, a Greek comedy about a slew of women going on a sex strike in protest of a protracted war. As soon as the cast of the play is put in place and rehearsals begin, a strange spell is slowly but surely cast over all the females in town, rendering them done with sex. As each female is overcome by the cold wind of the spell, she immediately loses desire and retreats from the male (or males, as the case may be) in her life. Even seemingly good, solid marriages come to a screeching sexual halt, and nobody understands what is happening. Everything comes to a climax - no pun intended - on the night of the play, and . . . well, I don't want to spoil it, so I'll say no more.

While I wouldn't rate this a great literary work, the author has a sharp wit and excellent insight, I think, into male-female relationships. Although the subject matter is sex, it's not pornographic or even very graphic for that matter - it's really more about relationships. The story is an easy, engaging read, and the subject matter is so intriguing that I found that it moved along very quickly. While I was personally a little horrified at how casually and matter-of-factly the story deals with sex among high-schoolers (probably because I am on the brink of having a high-schooler myself), it certainly raises some very thought-provoking questions about the role of desire in relationships, the ebb and flow of it, the importance of the sexual side of relationships - especially long-term ones - and how the differing needs and wants of men and women in relationships so easily leads to conflict.

I think this would be an excellent book club choice! It would be fascinating, and probably very bonding and therapeutic, to sit among an intimate group of women and talk honestly and openly about the role of sex and desire in our relationships. I hope someone will choose it for my book club at some point!

Laura Ingalls Wilder: A Writer's Life (biography)

2011-04-04T07:38:00.000-07:00

Laura Ingalls Wilder: A Writer's Life by Pamela Smith Hill

Having been a voracious reader for as long as I can remember, I'm pretty sure that Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House books was the first complete series I read, and I was also a devoted fan of the television series, Little House on the Prairie. It's the truth when I say that growing up, I wanted to be Laura Ingalls.

Finally reading a biography about the real Laura Ingalls Wilder after all these years was fascinating. I have to admit that in some ways, having the real Laura Ingalls exposed took a bit of the shine off the fantasy I had grown up with and still find myself holding dear today. I guess on some level I realized that the Little House series of books are fiction based on Ms. Wilder's actual life experiences, but to read in detail about how facts were changed, embellished, etc. for the sake of artistry was a little like finding out that Santa Clause isn't real.

Still, it's a very good book. The author delves into not only Laura's true life experiences, but presents a detailed portrait of how Laura crafted the books that would become iconic. It also discusses at length the role her daughter, Rose Wilder Lane, played both in Laura's personal and professional lives. I was surprised to learn about the controversy that exists as to how involved Rose was in the writing of the Little House series (did she merely edit them or actually ghost-write them?), as well as the fact that Laura and her daughter had an often contentious relationship.

If you are a Little House fan, or a fan of a good biography, I highly recommend this book. I am definitely inspired now to go searching for my old Little House books wherever they are packed away.

Forgotten: Seventeen and Homeless

2011-04-03T17:50:00.000-07:00

Forgotten: Seventeen and Homeless by Melody Carlson

As if seventeen wasn't hard enough ... Adele finally thinks her mom has got things under control when she moves them to a new city, with a new job and actual money in the bank. Adele immediately finds herself loving her new life, her new school and her new friends.

But the fun doesn't last long. Mom is bipolar and like her good moods, all good things come to an end. Suddenly, the rent is past due, there is no more food in the house and after a fight with her daughter, mom flees the scene with her new pothead boyfriend.

Adele is forced to make it on her own. She gets a job, lives out of the pothead's abandoned van, and tries her best to go on as if nothing has changed ... but how long can that possibly last?

Another freebie on Kindle, and I actually read the book's description before diving into the book itself. Two things drew me in - a mother with bipolar and a teenager trying to make it on her own. The story line intrigued me, being both bipolar and trying a short stint on the streets as a teen myself, I felt I could relate.

The story itself was half believable. Adele seems to be a fairly well thought out character, but the supporting characters lacked realness. One character in particular, I really grew to like, but then the author cut her out of the story without any real information. Towards the end of the book, Adele is introduced to a priest, who plays a very minimal part in the book. At the end, Adele goes to him for help and is told if she finds god, she finds help. Suddenly there is a couple willing to take her in and care for her so that she can finish school, her old employer takes her back and her boyfriend is forgiving of being lied to for months.

Really? all because of god? not because she actually told someone that she was alone and struggling. not because she asked for help. but because she found god?

I have no problem reading about people who find strength in their faith, but this came out of no where and left me feeling like someone was trying to prove a miracle and wrap up the book in a pretty gold bow.

I consider this an easy read, for those times when you need something to fill in the days between the "next great read", but I wouldn't go out of my way to look for it.

Unbroken (biography/non-fiction)

2011-03-29T08:54:00.000-07:00

Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand

One word sums up this book: wow.

Though not the least bit a fan of war stories, I kept running across this book on bestseller lists. I finally read one review that said something to the effect of "You don't have to appreciate a good war story to appreciate this amazing story." So the next time I was at the bookstore and saw this book on the front shelves, I bought it.

From the first page, I was utterly sucked in to the story of Louis Zamperini. Born in 1917 in New York and moving to Southern California in early childhood, "Louie," the son of Italian immigrants, spent his childhood getting into every form of trouble imaginable. A daring thief, trouble-maker, and delinquent, he found salvation in his teen years in running, eventually making it to the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. With World War II on the horizon, he landed in the Army air forces where he became a bombardier. Shortly into his tour of duty, the plane in which he and his fellow crewman were sent on a search mission for a missing plane, Louie's plane crashed at sea, with only three men from the crew surviving the crash. After 47 harrowing days at sea, clinging to a life raft and fighting sharks and starvation, and drifting thousands of miles into enemy territory, the surviving men were "rescued" by Japanese military, whereupon they were dumped in prison camps and spent the next two and a half years as POWs, subjected to unspeakable atrocities, while their families at home thought they were dead, killed in action.

Finally, WWII came to an end, and the POWs were released - those who hadn't died from starvation, disease, or outright murder - and found their way home. Only home wasn't the haven Louie had dreamed of throughout his captivity. Suddenly he found himself descending into rage, depression, and alcoholism - what is now known as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Eventually he finds redemption and makes peace with his horrific past. Louis Zamperini is still alive and spry today, well into his 90s.

The author is an awesome storyteller, and the book is meticulously researched. My husband told me that I'm the only person he's ever known who tends to gasp aloud when reading. This book had me gasping aloud plenty! It's full of drama and nail-biting suspense, truly a book I had a very difficult time putting down. It was fascinating learning so much about WWII, also. I realized as I was reading it that there are so many books and accounts out there about WWII as it pertained to the Holocaust and the war in Europe. This is the first account I've read about the war as it happened with Japan, and the absolute atrocities tens of thousands of people suffered at the hands of the Japanese. You think the Nazis were bad?

Read this. You won't be sorry.

Full Dark, No Stars (short stories)

2011-03-18T07:42:00.000-07:00

Full Dark, No Stars, by Stephen King

I have tried my best in Full Dark, No Stars to record what people might do, and how they might behave, under certain dire circumstances. The people in these stories are not without hope, but they acknowledge that even our fondest hopes (and our fondest wishes for our fellowmen and the society in which we live ) may sometimes be in vain. - Stephen King

Full Dark, No Stars is a collection of 4 short, harshly told stories, where the main character must face a darker side of themselves.

1922 - the worst year of Wilfred Leland James' life. Not only does Wilfred meet a darker side of himself when his wife, Arlette, decides to sell off 100 acres of land that she inherited, but he also introduces his 14 year old son to his own demon. The story is a detailed confession of exactly how he talked his son into helping him with his gruesome deeds, how they worked together to cover them up and how his son chose to live with the guilt he carried.

Big Driver - Tess is violated and left for dead in a ditch along one of Massachusetts back roads. She meets a determined side of herself, the "new Tess" as she scrambles out of that ditch and works her way back home. She doesn't report the rape, but instead learns more about her attacker and woman who sent her to him. what she does with that information is not unimaginable.

Fair Extension - Make a deal with the devil? Dave Streeter doesn't believe it's possible at first, but within days, signs of his fatal cancer show that it is rapidly disappearing. The price? Fifteen percent of his earnings for fifteen years and the name of the one person he hates. Dave has a good marriage, loving children, and why wouldn't he want to spend more time with them? Cancer was cheating him out of his fair share, just like his best friend since high school cheated him out of his first love.

A Good Marriage - When you've been married for almost 30 years, you think you'd know someone. But when Darcy's husband goes out of town on business and she needs to enter his domain (the garage) in search of two AA batteries, she learns there is a side of Bob she never knew existed. In her quest to discover how far he could have gone, she also finds another side of herself. Just how much is too much when it comes to keeping secrets?

I have to be honest and say, I have never read Stephen King before.

::: gasp :::

I've tried! I love the movies and mini series' made from his books, but my attempts at reading him have been a painful process which ultimately leads me back to the bookshelf. I saw this book in the store (then price comped it on my kindle) and thought I'd give it a try - short stories don't leave much time for wordiness and fluff.

The stories were somewhat predictable, but the gruesome detail (that I sickly enjoy) was there in true King fashion. It was interesting to explore the darker side of your average, every day Joe. Reading these stories had me asking myself what I would do if I found myself in the same situations ... while I can't say I would have allowed the sinister side of me to take over, I can acknowledge the plausibility of the outcome.

The Greatest Thing Since Sliced Bread (a novel)

2011-03-17T13:01:00.001-07:00

The Greatest Thing Since Sliced Bread by Don Robertson

This is another "classic" (published in 1965) I never heard of until someone recently chose it for our book club to read. At a little over 200 pages, it's a short and easy read.

It tells the story of a nine-year-old boy, Morris Bird III, who sets out one October day in 1944 with his little sister in tow, to trek across Cleveland to visit a friend. Along the way, he faces challenges and obstacles which are supposed to be seen as character-building. The story culminates when Morris and his sister reach their destination at the other end of town right as the Cleveland East Ohio Gas Explosion takes place, an actual event, and apparently one of the worst industrial disasters in American history.

Morris's pilgrimage across town represents his quest for courage, "selfrespect," and a wish to prove his own determination. It's a coming-of-age story, and describes a number of other characters as well. I didn't really care for the book. The author's writing style was not my cup of tea (his penchant for reinventing multiple words as one, as in "selfrespect" and "twentyone" and "lefthanded" and "allofasudden" drove me a little batty), and I didn't like any of the characters, with the exception of an elderly black woman who plays a very minor part in the story. I mostly didn't like Morris Bird III - he's a bratty, mouthy kid who is mean to his little sister, but somehow the reader is asked to root for him. Maybe it's just me, but I didn't think his character was terribly admirable.

I Am Nujood, Age 10 and Divorced

2011-03-10T11:12:00.000-08:00

I Am Nujood, Age 10 and Divorced by Nujood Ali and Delphine Minoui (true story)

"Since forever I have learned to say yes to everything.

Today I have decided to say no."

I saw this book in a store back in January and was intrigued ... who wouldn't be? at least slightly??

I price checked the store copy to my Kindle and immediately put it on my wish list. I downloaded it last week and read through it in a night. It wasn't a "great" read, it certainly won't be found on everyone's must read list, but it left a lasting impression with me.

Nujood is 10, or at least, that is how old she figures she is. She lives in a small village, many difficult miles outside the nearest city with her parents, her father's second wife, and many siblings. Being so far away from conveniences (like hospitals), records of births and deaths were not kept, so Nujood's true age is really not known. But like any child, she doesn't get caught up in the dealings of the "grown up" world and finds joy in the simple pleasures, like hide and seek with her younger siblings and special trips with her older sister.

The harsh reality of her family's customs soon make their way into Nujood's life. Her brother, Fares, argues with her father and leaves home, only to be heard from again in Saudi Arabia. Her sister Mona is suddenly married off while her family leaves their small village of Khardji and heads to the capital, Sana'a, leaving behind all their belongings. Mona eventually returns to the family home and her husband unexpectedly runs off with Nujood's other sister, Jamila.

Soon, Nujood is the oldest eligible daughter in the home, and in order to reduce his "burdens", her father agrees to marry her to a man three times her age! The husband has agreed he will not consummate the marriage until one year after Nujood's first period.

But the husband does not keep his promise and rapes the young girl the first night in her new home.

Nujood has been taught to do as she is told. The word of her father and brothers - and now her husband - is as good as law, but she also knows that the nightly rapes and beatings are not right. One day she sneaks away to the courthouse and finds a group of people willing to fight for her right to be a child.

Unfortunately, in some countries child marriages are not uncommon, in fact, they are the norm. Nujood's courage to fight for her rights has exposed this practice in countries such as Afganistan, Egypt, India, Iran and Pakistan. Because of her public struggle, laws have been rewritten and more are in the making to protect the rights of young girls. Programs, like ENTELAK (organized by the Girls world Communication Center, GWCC), have been launched to help girls who have become the victims of early marriage to continue their education and to secure a good future.

The royalties from this book are helping to finance Nujood's family ... her continued education, clothing, food and rent. Later the money will help Nujood pursue her dream of becoming a lawyer who will help other young girls.

The Help by Kathryn Stockett

2011-03-06T13:05:00.000-08:00

Lisa reviewed this book quite some time ago and I put it on my to-read list then. It interested me for several reasons and all of those reasons led to my eventual enjoyment of the book.

While I was reading, I was reminded of growing up and spending Spring Break and summer vacations with my great-grandmother and grandmother, respectively. The former lived in small town North Carolina and the latter in an affluent area of New York. While those worlds were very different, what my grandmother learned from growing up in that small, country town followed her to the "big city." I remember wondering why we never crossed the railroad tracks in Hertford and why my grandmother demeanor was the way it was in Great Neck. I didn't grow up picking cotton and tobacco as a child, nor was I raised with an inherent fear/reverence of white people. The differences were evident and this book continues to help me understand, as an adult, why that was.

All that to say, this book took me back to the days when I used to visit my grandmother at the house where she stayed on the weekends, working for a wealthy white family. It made me think of what that life must have been like for my foremothers in another time, in another place. The book felt very real and true and I felt the gamut of emotions while reading: anger and frustration, pride and fear. I was also quite impressed that the author was able to tell such a tale using the voice of those that lived the life that she did not.

I was so intrigued that I plan to read Telling Memories Among Southern Women: Domestic Workers and Their Employers in the Segregated South, the book that inspired the author to write The Help.

This was a library book so I do not have it to pass along.

The Corrections (a novel)

2011-03-03T13:23:00.001-08:00

The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen

Have you ever read a book that you loved so much, it made you want to run out and buy every other book by the same author? That's how I felt about Jonathan Franzen's Freedom; after reading it, and finding myself almost grieving that the book had come to an end, I wanted more of this author. And so I bought The Corrections, an older, highly acclaimed novel of his.

Although I liked Freedom more, this book doesn't disappoint (although I do find it curious that this one won The National Book Award, and as far as I know, Freedom has not won any awards). Stretching from mid-century to modern-day, in this novel unfolds the Lamberts, a midwestern family comprised of Alfred, a stern, austere, repressed man descending into dementia, his wife Enid, flighty, desperate for some love and happiness and growing ever more bitter, and their three children: Gary, Chip, and Denise, who grow up and fly the coop in their own attempts to escape the oppression of their parents and who each, in his or her own way, make a mess of their lives. The story culminates in a Christmas reunion between the five of them that is both comic and tragic.

Franzen clearly has a gift for rendering characters who seem so real that it feels like you could touch them. Although every one of the Lamberts is at first glance unlikable, the author allows you to get to know them and in the end, love them.

I think I would have gotten more out of this book had I been able to read it at a quicker, smoother pace. Life has offered me so many distractions lately, however, that I feel like my reading of this story was choppy, and that took away from it for me. Nonetheless, I really enjoyed it and recommend it.

Mine's up for grabs!

PS: Franzen is definitely one of my new favorite authors, and I can't wait to read something else by him. Apparently there is lots to choose from!

Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother [memoir]

2011-01-28T16:28:00.000-08:00

Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother by Amy Chua has been getting a lot of press these days, but I was on the fence about reading about it. I downloaded the sample and in it the author mentioned that she has a younger sister with Down syndrome so that sealed it for me. Just mention DS and I'm a sucker, even if the story has nothing to do with it. But I was curious if having a sibling made a person more sensitive to your own children's differences.

Very obviously NOT in Chua's case. If you haven't heard about the controversy, the book is a memoir about how she raised her kids "the Chinese way" as opposed to "the Western way". (BTW, her husband is Jewish.) She's the stereotypical high-achieving supermom with those kids who MUST be the best academically and musically. No TV, no computer games, no playdates, no sleepovers. Just hours of practice, practice, practice.

Everything must be perfect. She even rejects her kids' homemade birthday cards for their mom and told them to do it over again because they weren't good enough. That's just one example of the brutal exchanges she recounts in her book. She attempts to be self-reflective and self-deprecating, but only succeeds some of the time. Because reading it I always felt like she was sneering at what most people would consider good parenting. I was completely incredulous at her methods. Like she finds it perfectly acceptable to call her kids "garbage" and then tries to play it off as a cultural difference. Ugh. Of course, she defends her parenting style by pointing out that her kids have learned perseverance, dedication, overcoming obstacles, etc. That the cycle of success breeds more success and self-esteem and self-confidence. But she does acknowledge that there's no room for "failure".

Her younger daughter does eventually rebel (and Chua discovers that she can't apply the same methods to her dogs) and supposedly that's what this book is about. That Chua has reconsidered her ways. But she's so damn smug about the whole thing, I don't buy it.

It does make you reflect on your own parenting methods. How much is too much, how much is too little and all that. It's a super quick read. I think it took me about 2 hours to read, not counting the numerous times I had to put the book down to avoid screaming at the pages. If you decide to read it, be prepared to do that!

The Postmistress [novel]

2011-01-28T16:01:00.001-08:00

I ended up reading The Postmistress by Sarah Blake because I discovered I could actually borrow eBooks from our local library -- but nearly everything had an insane waiting list and this was one of the few books that I had heard of that didn't have a long wait. I'd heard it compared to The Help as a wonderful debut novel by a female writer. Plus I had just read The Hotel at the Corner of Bitter and Sweet and was in WWII frame of mind. (I decided not to review that book since Lisa did a great job of it last year, but I really loved it as well!)

The Postmistress centers on the lives of three female characters at the start of WWII: Frankie, one of the few female war correspondents reporting from Europe; Iris, the Postmistress in the small vacation town of Franklin, Massachusetts; and Emma, the young wife of Franklin's town doctor.

It took a good 1/3 of the book trying to figure out the characters. It opens up with the question "what if the Postmistress didn't deliver the mail?"But the title (and the opening question) is a bit misleading, because the main character is definitely Frankie, the war correspondent, trying to be objective about the war while experiencing the bombings of London and the fleeing of Jews throughout Europe. She desperately wants to get people in America to care about what is happening. Her journey through Europe in the middle third of the book is the strongest part of the story to me.

Over on the other side of the Atlantic, people in the small town of Franklin listen to Frankie over the radio, and pretty much go on about their daily lives. However, the young doctor, Emma's husband, after losing a patient, feels driven by one of Frankie's broadcasts to go over to London to help out. It's because of this that the fates of Frankie, Emma, and Iris cross.

Unfortunately, the question that the author posed at the beginning and probably wanted to be the main theme of the story, struck me as the weakest section. The question of, is it better to tell someone the truth no matter how bad or let them go on hoping, just didn't work for me. I found that part to be clichéd and uninteresting. I didn't care much for Emma and Iris at all.

But Frankie's story in the midst of the war was captivating, suspenseful and heartbreaking. It's enough to recommend the book.

Switched

2011-01-27T10:06:00.000-08:00

Switched (Trylle Trilogy, book 1) by Amanda Hocking

First, I have to tell you that my 11 year old daughter sprung this book on me (yes, another kids' book - I'd say TWEEN). We were on our way to dinner when she says, "I downloaded a sample on my kindle and decided to buy the book. It starts off with a girl on her 6th birthday and her mom tries to kill her by stabbing her." Then, she walks away!

So that night I go home, log onto her account, find the book, and download it to my own kindle. Sure enough, the attempted murder is in the Prologue.

Eleven years after her mother called her a monster and tried to kill her, Wendy is living with her Aunt Maggie and her brother, Matt, and is starting yet another new school after being expelled from the last. She has no friends and she doesn't fit in anywhere.

She begins to notice weird feelings at this new school, like someone is watching her. She originally thinks it's Finn Holmes, a creepy kid that keeps staring at her in class, but after talking to him, she realizes it's not the same.

Finn introduces her to the possibility of a place where she would be surrounded by people more like her, only it would prove what her mother had said on her 6th birthday ... she was a monster. She can't bear the idea of leaving the only two people that have shown her real love. After an attempted kidnapping, Wendy decides to leave with Finn to keep her family safe ... only the world he takes her to is not all she hoped it would be.

I actually enjoyed this book, tho it wasn't one of those "just can't put it down" reads. There are a few things in it that tend to be pet peeves of mine ... there is missing punctuation and character hopping, (like the print was rushed). And there are unanswered questions, like why is Wendy constantly being expelled? I suppose, the age that it is geared towards would be more interested in the here and now part of the story, but it's just an annoyance of mine. The story itself was fairly original (to me), and it was an easy read.

I'd definitely recommend it to the TWEEN age, especially if they are into sci-fi/fantasy and are tired of nothing but vampire stories. The Trylle series, so far (I'm on book 2), reminds me a lot of The Golden Compass books, tho not nearly as detailed.

Room [novel]

2011-01-26T17:38:00.001-08:00

Another book on seemingly every top ten list...Room by Emma Donoghue.

When I first read the synopsis of this book, the story of a girl imprisoned in an 11' x 11' room who has a child by her rapist and raises her son in that room, I was honestly horrified. The theme just struck me as so sensational and tabloid.

But when I read that the story is told through the eyes of the 5 year old son, I was curious as how the author was going to pull that off without being sensational and tabloid.

What comes across is a child's pure innocence. Even though as a reader you are completely outraged and disgusted at the whole situation, this is the only life, the only reality, the child knows. Even more amazing is how much the mother loves her kid and goes to great lengths to keep him safe, educate him (even though he has only a few books that they read over and over again), and entertain him (very creatively!). Some days I can't stand being in the same house as my kids for a minute longer, I can't imagine living 24/7 without a break in an 11' x 11' room and coming up with so many creative ideas to pass each day.

Eventually, they are rescued. The rest of the book which deals with the publicity and emotional trauma of having your world suddenly opened up.

Although sometimes the boy seemed to be a bit too precocious (would a five year old really think that?) for the most part he seemed completely believable.

I really enjoyed the book and it's a very easy read, in spite of the subject matter.

This one's on my Kindle.

The Imperfectionists [novel]

2011-01-26T17:12:00.000-08:00

I love January. One, because it's perfect weather for curling up with a book (or electronic reading device) and a cup of cocoa. And two, because all those "Best of the Year" lists come out and I don't get so overwhelmed looking through the thousands of books available!

One book on many top ten lists is The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman. It reads like another one of those books written in the "a novel in short stories" style which I'm not really fond of, but seems to be a popular technique these days (Olive Kitteridge and Let The Great World Spin come to mind). It revolves around the slow demise of an English language newspaper in Rome. The chapters tell stories of the reporters and editors (and one avid reader) who work at the paper.

Since each chapter focuses on one character, some chapters are more engaging than others. Some characters are more interesting than others. All of the people have some serious flaws (but then I suppose we all do) . And they are loosely tied together because sometimes someone from a previous chapter has a minor part later on. I found that to be interesting...the differences in people in the work and personal lives. I also found the inner workings and politics of the newspaper business intriguing.

If you like rich character studies, it's a worthwhile read. But if you're looking for a plot and suspense, not so much.

This one's on my Kindle (I do have some actual paperback books to give away, I just haven't gotten around to reading them yet!)

36 Arguments For the Existence of God: A Work of Fiction

2011-01-22T14:58:00.000-08:00

36 Arguments For the Existence of God: A Work of Fiction by Rebecca Newberger Goldstein

Meet Cass Seltzer, professor of Psychology of Religion, dubbed the "atheist with a soul." He is catapulted to fame and fortune when he pens a bestselling book entitled The Varieties of Religious Illusion. In this novel, he navigates the tricky terrain of love, and we meet, among other characters, a child prodigy, a delusional professor, and Cass's three love interests, all women who are in some way larger than life. No matter where you stand on the topic of religion, you just can't help liking Cass and his entourage.

I read one review of this book that described it as "crackling with intelligence," and I think that's a very appropriate description. The author is clearly brilliant, and I found myself feeling a little dumb through certain parts of it. The story is extremely enjoyable, however, and it culminates in a debate between Cass and a steely-eyed theist over the existence of God which had me biting my nails in suspense, and ultimately cheering.

Atheist fiction - it's right up my alley. At the end of the book is an Appendix which outlines the "36 Arguments For the Existence of God" at the heart of fictional Cass Seltzer's fictional bestseller. Though this book is a work of fiction, the arguments are very real. It seems that every fathomable argument ever made in favor of the existence of a divine higher power is covered, and then logically, rationally, and scientifically deconstructed. I'm not sure how anyone could read the Appendix and come up with a credible refutation for any of the arguments. I loved it because it so eloquently and plainly explained so many things I've thought for a long time but haven't the capacity to put into such a logical form.

The actual arguments can be read in their entirety here: 36 Arguments For the Existence of God.

I loved this book. I doubt believers would enjoy it, as it casts religion and belief itself into ridiculousity. Read it if you dare. I'm keeping my copy.

Atlas Shrugged (novel)

2011-01-11T08:50:00.001-08:00

Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand

My first book review of the year is for a book I did not finish. Not only that, but I chose this book for my book club to read, and I will be hosting the discussion later this month. Yet, I did not finish it.

This was my second attempt at this epic novel. Though it was originally published in the 1950s, I had never heard of Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand, or any of her other works until about a year ago when a friend of mine mentioned it to me and told me it's the best book she's ever read. She also told me that the protagonist in the story reminded her of me (I still don't get that, but maybe I didn't get far enough into the story to draw any similarities).

The author, Ayn Rand, was born in 1905 in Russia. She lived through the Communist takeover, and her life was personally and profoundly affected by it. She eventually came to America, which she viewed as the one true free society. Her novel, Atlas Shrugged, basically illustrates, by way of fictional, larger-than-life characters, and a ficitional, larger-than-life society, the struggle between Socialism and Capitalism. In Ms. Rand's view, Socialism is evil and leads to corruption and apathy in a society, and Capitalism - people in a society motivated by self-interest and self-preservation, nurturing an environment of competition in the marketplace - is the only true path to a free society. She illustrates by extremes in her novel what would happen if true and absolute Socialism took over America, and the brightest minds in a society withdrew in protest. In a nutshell, the society collapses.

The premise of the story is fascinating, and story itself is an interesting one. The big problem is that it is just far too long and laborious to read. Every person, place, and thing is described in minute detail. Every dialogue involves pages-long speeches. It's exhausting. My copy of the book is 1169 pages long, and I finally gave up at page 435 (so I do feel that I gave it a decent attempt). I think the entire thing could have been condensed by at least half and not lost anything the author was trying to get across. My feeling is that this is one of those books that you may want to read if you want people to think you're Super Intelligent. It's like a feather in one's cap if one can say, "Oh, yes, I read Atlas Shrugged." As for me? I'll do without the feather, thank you very much. I felt quite liberated when I gave myself permission to quit Atlas Shrugged.

As for my upcoming book club discussion? I made myself read the Spark Notes as penance. It appears to outline everything anyone really needs to know about the book, and it's a much more enjoyable read.

My copy of Atlas Shrugged is up for grabs. Good riddance.

Just Kids [memoir]

2011-01-10T19:29:00.000-08:00

So, the first book I decided to read this year was Just Kids by Patti Smith. In spite of my love of 70's & 80's punk/alternative rock, I never quite understood the reverence musicians had for Patti Smith. "Because the Night" and "Dancing Barefoot" was pretty much all I knew about her.

Just Kids focuses on the early years and Patti's development as an artist and her extraordinary relationship with photographer Robert Mapplethorpe. I wasn't sure what to expect, since I wasn't familiar with either artist's work.

I was really engaged with the book. Watching these two grow as artists and all the sacrifices and self-discoveries they made was fascinating. I've always admired artists, but had no idea what makes them tick, and it was a great insight.

There were a few classic rock 'n' roll encounters, but they are just in passing. There were quite a few literary and musical references that I didn't understand, though. And I thought the ending felt a bit rushed. But overall, Patti Smith really has a gift with words and storytelling. I'll probably give her music another listen as well!

This one's on my Kindle.

Book Giveaway Extravaganza!!

2011-01-09T13:14:00.000-08:00

Have I mentioned that I have a book-buying problem? I do. I love to buy books. Problem is, oftentimes the books I buy will sit on my shelf for months and months and eventually I will be forced to acknowledge to myself that I don't know why I bought such and such book and it's highly doubtful I'll ever read it, because suddenly it looks far less interesting (to me) than it did in the bookstore.

Lucky you, however! You can benefit from my habit! I've recently done some housekeeping and am offering the following books up for grabs, free of charge! Just drop me an email at bloggymamaATgmailDOTcom with your address if you want any of the books listed. I'll ship on my dime within the continental U.S.

Renegade: The Making of a President by Richard Wolffe

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson (this one I actually read; excellent book!)

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by David Eggers

Letters to My Daughter by Maya Angelou

My Lobotomy by Howard Dully

Autobiograhy of a Face by Lucy Grealy

The Road by Cormac McCarthy

Paradise by Toni Morrison

The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner

Self-Made Man: One Woman's Year Disguised as a Man by Norah Vincent

Remember Me; The Return; The Last Story

2010-12-14T17:22:00.000-08:00

Remember Me; The Return; The Last Story by Christopher Pike

Three books in one! What more could a gal ask for? I guess you'll soon find out!

Before I start, I want to point out two things. One, this is 3 reviews in one, so it's gonna be lengthy, and two, this is a Young Adult Novel. I like to know what my kids are reading, or what their friends are reading, I want to know what they are talking about. Many times I will jump on a book that looks interesting, so I can recommend it to them or maybe hide it away to see if they will find it on their own ::: wink wink ::: plus, they are easy reads - I plowed through the 800+ pages in two days.

Remember Me Shari Cooper is your stereo-typical 18 year old California girl. Blonde hair, blue eyes, rich parents, big house by the beach, perfect family. She has a drop dead gorgeous boyfriend, is popular, drives a red sports car, oh! and did I mention she is dead?

Yep! Two weeks from graduating high school, Shari is found dead under a balcony, 4 stories up, where she had been attending a birthday party. The death is ruled a suicide, even though she showed no signs of being suicidal. Looking on on the other side, she has no idea how she was killed, she only knows she never would have jumped. Before she can "go into the light", she wants to know what happened. Shari spies on her "friends" to see how they handle her death and she follows Detective Garrett as he pieces together the clues that unravel the mystery.

The Return Shari Cooper's murder has been solved; she can finally rest on the other side. Only she can't. There was so much of her life left to live, and she is so much more aware now.

Shari is given an opportunity reserved only for rare souls. She has the chance to be reborn, but not as an infant. She will take the place of an 18 year old girl who has given up on life. Shari will become a Wanderer and will turn this otherwise destined-for-nothing life into something others will look up to.

The Last Story Shari Cooper/Jean Rodrigues, has overcome amazing challenges. She has returned from the dead and has narrowly escaped another death. She is now a famous author, traveling the world while changing it with her stories. Her latest book is about her former life, or really, her death. She writes as her previous identity, Shari Cooper, from beyond the grave. She publicly details her involvement in the solving of her murder, even though it may hurt the people she wants most to help.

But has she lost sight of her purpose? The reason for her re-birth? Shari/Jean struggles to overcome the obstacles that fame and money throw in her face as she works to unravel a new story forming in her mind. Will she understand the deep memories of the past before it's too late?

I read the publishers synopsis of the book and thought it sounded similar to The Lovely Bones, which is a book I love and have read a number of times. I have always enjoyed books about the supernatural. I didn't realize that it was actually a 3-book series.

I finished the first book (300 pages) in an afternoon and honestly I was impressed with it. It didn't drag on with annoying details and it ended well. I could have walked away from the story feeling satisfied that it was over - no loose ends, no what-ifs, no feeling of "it should have explained more ...".

and if you have read my last few reviews, you'd know this has been an issue with me

The second book was a total mess. While I respect where the author was trying to go with it, I really felt it was thrown together to fulfill a contract deadline. It was short, jumbled and confusing. Characters were introduced, but never elaborated on, which alone was no big deal until they were reintroduced in the 3rd book, and well ... I had no idea who they were! Being a closet sci-fi junkie, I had no issues with Shari taking over Jean's body, or even the religious background to the story, I just felt it could have been done SO much better.

By the 3rd book I was honestly just looking forward to putting the series to rest. It was better than the second, but it still felt rushed and incomplete. The story line jumped around, characters that were meaningless in book 2 were reintroduced and remained, still, pretty meaningless. The passion behind the story was gone and I felt kind of sorry for the author.

I really enjoyed Remember Me, I may even read it again sometime, but the sequels I could live without.

I have a 1.5 pound book to pass along if anyone is interested ;0)

What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day

2010-12-06T11:46:00.000-08:00

What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day by Pearle Cleage

Ava Johnson is a successful hairdresser in Atlanta. She has her own shop, she surrounds herself with the finest clothes and the finest people, and she enjoys living her life to the fullest. She has all she hoped for when she left Idlewild, Michigan 10 years ago

... and then some

It all begins to come to a screeching halt when a woman barges into her shop demanding that Ava "take it back!". What she wants her to take back, is the letter that Ava had written to this woman's husband. The letter that she'd sent out to every sexual partner she'd had in Atlanta. The one explaining she was HIV positive.

Ava sells her shop and plans to head west to San Francisco, but first she wants to stop in Idlewild to visit her sister, Joyce. What Ava thinks is a lazy summer visit, turns into a new challenge when she finds that the troubles of the big cities have invaded the lazy town she'd grown up in. Her sister needs her help and Ava can't convince her to pick up and move with her, so she stays to help out and it turns out not to be a bad choice afterall.

This is one of those books I downloaded on a whim. It has been sitting on my kindle for months, but aside from the interesting title, I knew nothing about the book. I finally sat down to read it and finished it in just a couple of days.

The book was an easy read and fairly entertaining, despite the number of tragedies that seems to continuously attack these poor women. There is quite a bit of information on HIV and AIDS and some colorful observations of African American life. The dialogue is straight forward and you definitely feel the change from one character to another ... the brutal teenage drug addicts and the quieter, prayerful sister.

The only complaint I had about the book was I felt it ended rather hastily (I think this is becoming a pattern for me?). Now that I have opened up my reading genre, I am finding that some authors have a talent of leaving a book at the right time ... closing doors in a timely manner and leaving the reader satisfied. Other authors tend to build up the action til the last couple of chapters and then slam the door I was left feeling like I'd just watched an epsiode of The Cosby Show ... laughs, problems, laughs, the big problem comes to a head ... then let's wrap it all up in a big bow for the last 5 minutes. It left me feeling cheated as a child and all these years later I am finding the same sentiment.

I would still recommend it, though. I would love to pass along my copy, but it's on my kindle ♥

Look Again

2010-11-23T10:36:00.000-08:00

Look Again by Lisa Scottoline
Ellen Gleeson is a successful newspaper reporter and a single mom. The story opens with her juggling the daily routine of working mom ... coming home from a day of work, hands full with mail, briefcase and Chinese take out for dinner. Only, something in the mail draws her attention.

Have you seen me?

We've all seen the card in the mail. The one with the picture of the missing child and the story of their horrible disappearance reduced to a list of dates and a short description of what they looked like, or a computer generated version of what they may look like today. Only the child on this card looks exactly like Ellen's adopted son.

The story leads us with Ellen's nagging feeling that the familiarity with the boy on the card is more than mere coincidence. As a reporter she has learned to trust this instinct. As a mother she fears it. We watch her put the pieces together as she risks her job, her heart and her life fighting her need for the truth and her desire to keep her little boy.

This book was lent to me by a friend who raved about it. The book sounded good, but as a mother of an adopted child I have to admit I was hesitant reading anything that challenges our relationship, both legally and emotionally. I read half the book in my first sitting, and then I reached a part - a legal loophole, if you will - that had me set the book aside.

The book dredged up some feelings I thought had been laid to rest. It made me question the extent that one would go to, to do right by their child. Do you stay blissfully ignorant and go about your life knowing that there are people whose lives have been shattered and that you may hold the key to putting the pieces back together? Or do you risk shattering your own life by looking for the truth?

I finished the rest of the book two days later. I honestly could have walked away from it and never looked back, but the perfectionist in me says I have to finish what I started. I figured I knew how it would end, I just wasn't sure I was ready to go there.

Any book that can reach in and yank out my heart, in my opinion, has some good to it. It was well written and easy to follow. It held a little bit for every reader - romance, suspense, action, mystery. I thought the torn-emotions between wanting to know the truth vs wanting to pretend nothing would change came across pretty clearly. But the book ended rather abruptly, in my opinion, it seemed like the author just kind of pooped out after getting to a point and threw in an Epilogue to tie it all together. I wasn't real pleased with that.

I recommend as an easy read, despite it's almost 380 pages.

Moloka'i (a novel)

2010-11-20T13:42:00.000-08:00

Moloka'i by Alan Brennert

This is the story of Rachel, a young Hawaiian girl, beloved by her family and living an idyllic childhood in late eighteenth century Honolulu, who contracts leprosy at the age of seven and is ripped away from her family and the only life she's ever known and sent to live in exhile in the leper colony on the tiny island of Moloka'i. Although fictitious, this novel is populated by a number of people who actually did live, and on historical events that actually took place.

Heartwrenching as it is reading about a little girl torn from her family and sent away to live out her life diseased and orphaned, the book actually ends up being uplifting without feeling contrived or saccharine. Rachel manages to carve out a life for herself in the leper colony, becoming part of a new family of other people, young and old, living with the same disease as she, the same feelings of loss, and the same determination to live. Full of lush descriptions of the Hawaiian landscape and culture, it was easy to visualize the story as it unfolded.

I never knew a whole lot about leprosy (now called Hansen's Disease) until reading this book, which inspired me to do a little further research. What has historically been viewed as the scourge of the sinful and unclean (and is still viewed as such today in many cultures), it is actually just a bacterial infection that, tragically, causes horrific disfiguration if left untreated. Fortunately, there are very effective treatments today that arrest the disease. Knowing this, however, makes it all the more tragic how many thousands and thousands of people were stripped of everyone and everything they had and forced to live out their lives as virtual criminals in exhile.

I really enjoyed this one and highly recommend it (I read it on my iPad so don't have a copy to give away).

My Mother's Rules

2010-11-15T08:45:00.000-08:00

My Mother's Rules: a Practical Guide to Becoming an Emotional Genius by Lynn Toler

You might recognize the author as Judge Lynn Toler of the nationally syndicated show, Divorce Court. In a mix of inspirational memoir meets self help, Toler shares with us her mother's "rules" for life. Rules that were founded upon a need to do more than just survive. A childhood of poverty, a mentally ill, alocholic husband, and two little girls ... this is where her mother began and her rules helped Toler become the successful woman that she is today.

Growing up in Ohio, the author takes us through her childhood, living with a father whose moods could be volatile, and a mother who managed to keep every one together. We see how her mother's ability to keep her own feelings in check made it possible to somewhat gauge her husband's reaction to life's daily battles.

Toler describes, rather frankly, not only the outbursts she witnessed from her father as a child, but also how "the Beast" in her can also take over all rational thinking and replace it with fear. We learn that the tools her mother used in living with a mentally ill husband, also work for Lynn when she is battling the demons that reside in her own mind.

These rules cover everything from knowing where your feelings come from, tackling them head on, and turning them around to make them work for you instead of against you ... working through an issue or avoiding one completely ... ignoring insult, helping others see what you're saying, and when to ask for help.

Most people are not, I have realized, emotionally well practiced. We tend to misunderstand our fears and misinterpret our desires. We act when we ought to sit still; we feel when we should instead think, and in the end, this allows our emotions to handle us as opposed to us handling them.

I came across this title on Amazon's recommended books and after reading a sample of it on my kindle, had no issue in paying for the rest. I personally have my own set of "rules" in dealing with my emotions as a way to keep a handle on my bipolar. By using what I've learned here, I feel confident that I can gain more control over the situations that I usually let slide by. Things like displaced anger, blowing up over a small issue because I am still upset about something that happened earlier in the day, can be put aside until the time is right to deal with it. This not only saves me the energy used in losing my cool, it also saves the embarrassment and guilt I'd feel later.

I'd recommend this book in a heartbeat.

Freedom (a novel)

2010-11-08T20:31:00.001-08:00

Freedom by Jonathan Franzen

Once in a while a novel comes along that is everything a novel should be: engrossing story line, believable characters whom you care about, and a completely engaging writing style. This is one of those novels, at least in my estimation. I actually wasn't going to read it, but I kept hearing buzz about it and finally gave in and downloaded it to my iPad, and I'm so glad I did.

Meet Patty, Walter, and Richard. The first chapter of the book takes the reader quickly through the implosion of Patty's and Walter's life together. The rest of the book takes the reader back to the beginning and then on the long path of life these people travel, showing how it all unwinds.

Patty is a talented athlete who carries childhood scars. Her college basketball career is abruptly ended by a devastating injury, and shortly after, she throws herself into marriage to Walter and raising her kids, trying to be The Best Mom Ever, at least to some degree as a reproach to her own emotionally unavailable family.

Walter is a somewhat geeky and tenderhearted man who has escaped his own childhood demons. He is a passionate environmentalist and a genuine good person, and falls hard for Patty.

Richard is Walter's best friend and polar opposite in almost every way. A selfish, drug-dabbling musician, he uses women, and is cynical. He falls for Patty in his own way.

What develops is something of a love triangle: Richard loves and admires Walter like a brother; but, alas, his best friend's girlfriend-then-wife gets under his skin and becomes an itch he can't quite scratch. Patty, too, loves and admires Walter, but, despite constant effort to be "her best person," she can never seem to get past feeling both not good enough for Walter, and as though she settled for Walter in some way because she also has an attraction to bad boy Richard.

Woven throughout the story is the theme of freedom: personal freedoms and the ways in which we abuse them and the prices we pay for them, set against a backdrop of national freedom and the devastation that has wreaked in many ways. It was hard to read all the environmental stuff and not look at my own carbon footprint with a critical eye.

The story is utterly believable and the characters so vivid and real, all of them extremely flawed, but each with a story to tell. I couldn't help but laugh and cry at their foibles, and in the end, the reader is left with a feeling of hopefulness.

On some level, it evoked for me a similar flavor as She's Come Undone by Wally Lamb, one of my all time favorite novels. This is one of those books I picked up every spare moment I had, and was sorry when it came to an end.

Blue Boy

2010-11-02T07:51:00.001-07:00

Blue Boy by Rakesh Satyal

Kiran Sharma is a smart, talented twelve year old boy. He is admired by most of his teachers, adored by the Indian Aunties, gets straight A's in school, goes to temple and is very observant of the people around him. Kiran also likes to wear his mother's make-up, play with dolls and he thinks he is Krishna, reincarnated.

This book takes us through a few months of Kiran's life. The author shows us how this little Indian boy actually splits his time in two worlds - that of his school, where he is the only Indian child and longs to play with the popular girls, talking about saved by the Bell and Beverly Hills, 90210. and that of his Temple, where he is surrounded by other Indian families, engrossed by all that he loves about his culture, but is still not accepted by the children.

I downloaded this book on my Kindle while it was offered as a freebie in honor of the students that took their lives as a result of bullying. I'm not really sure what I expected out of it. As usual I didn't read about the book before diving into it's pages. While I was impressed with the colorful pictures painted in my mind about Indian homes, food and Temple, I was left feeling a little lost. Like I was just observing the scenes without a clear direction in order.

It turns out the book was leading to a talent show where Kiran wanted to honor Krishna in song and dance. Along the way though, we were sidetracked with naked teenagers having sex in the park, a friend who spurred on prepubescent sexual curiosity with playboy magazines hidden under his bedroom desk, and a nagging question of, is Kiran attracted to boys? or does he just want to be a girl?

I read so many rave reviews about this book that I am left wondering if maybe I was just preoccupied while reading the book. I absolutely loved the description of Indian customs, clothing, food and decor. The narrative of his parents speech reminded me of my own Indian friends and I loved imagining them saying the words the author wrote (I'm weird like that). But as for the rest of the book?? I was kinda left ... stumped? In the story Kiran does something totally out of character, and while I kept thinking he would own up to it, he never does and hardly shows any remorse for the act.

Decide for yourself. This one may need a second read from me.

- I know what you're thinking .... what in the world possesses me to read these books??

After

2010-10-21T16:55:00.001-07:00

After by Amy Efaw

Fifteen year old Devon is a talented soccer player with "unlimited" potential. She is an honor student, has a 4.15 GPA and is well liked by the adults around her as well as her peers.

Devon has a very strict sense of the person she is and wants to become. She pushes herself to excel at everything she does, and with an absent mom, she is the only one she is accountable to.

Devon has also been arrested for the attempted murder of her newborn baby.

This story starts out with the police canvasing the Tacoma area after a man walking his dog, finds a newborn baby in a dumpster. When the police arrive at Devon's apartment, they find her nearly unconscious and covered in blood. We move with her through the trip to the hospital, her arrest, her court proceedings, her time in juvenile detention and through her confusion in all of the chaos. Through flashbacks we learn how Devon had allowed herself to fall for a boy slightly older than her, have one sexual encounter, and then deliver a baby all alone in her bathroom after denying the pregnancy for 9 months.

This book is labeled Children's Literature: 8th grade and up, and was recommended to me by my 18 year old daughter. Quite honestly, I don't know that I would have gotten out of it at 13 or 14, what I did at 30-something. The book is very well written and I didn't feel as if I were reading a Children's book at all. It was an easy read, though I found myself skipping some overly descriptive paragraphs to get to dialogue here and there (I swear I'm as impatient in reading as I am in real life).

While I admit the topic seems horrifying, the author focused more on the psychological aspects surrounding the event, than on the act of leaving a baby to die. I worked for Social Services and with children who've been abused and neglected for a number of years, so I had a little coldness in my heart for Devon when I started reading the book. I know there are two sides to every story, but when it comes to babies I tend to only take one side. Imagine my surprise as I start to feel empathy for this girl despite the depravity of her crime.

I think the author says it best in her note at the end of the book ...

The "dumpster baby" phenomenon is an invisible American tragedy, poorly understood and rarely acknowledged.

Though most people would consider the behavior inexplicable and unusual, its occurrence is disturbingly common ...

...Texas was the first state to enact what would later be termed "safe haven" legislation. that was in 1999, and since then, all forty-nine other states have passed similar legislation. Yet news outlets all over the United States are still reporting these "Dumpster baby" stories with alarming regularity. So why is this still happening? After attempts to answer that question.

In my own home, I would have no issues with my children reading After. I strongly recommend that a parent read it if their child shows an interest in this book. The topic brings up issues that should definitely be a conversation piece between parent and child.

my book is up for grabs, if anyone is interested ... and yes, I am aware of my tendency for the morose story ;)

For You Mom, Finally (memoir)

2010-10-21T11:01:00.001-07:00

For You Mom, Finally by Ruth Reichl

In this slim volume, the author, a former New York Times food critic, editor of Gourmet magazine, and author of several books, delves into the life of her mother, now deceased, trying to figure out what made this woman tick. Her mother's life was always fraught, and she succeeded in driving her daughter away with her eccentricities and deep unhappiness and dissatisfaction with her own life. After her death, the author sets out to locate a box of her mother's letters and diaries that was supposed to exist, and find the box she does. Inside she is is finally able to get inside her mother's head and get to know a woman she never really knew or understood when she was living. It ends up being a journey of self-discovery for the author, as well as an opportunity to finally begin to heal from old wounds. She wrote this book as a gift to her mother, believing that her mother would have liked her story to be told so that she could be understood, and to thank her for the lessons and gifts she now understands that her mother gave her.

I bought this book on a whim on a recent trip to the bookstore because (a) I'm a sucker for a memoir, and (b) I tend to be drawn to stories having to do with mother-daughter relationships because my own relationship with my mother has always been so volatile and unhealthy. There is a part of me that hopes, I guess, to find the key by reading other people's stories of their own mother-daughter relationships - not the key to reconciling with my mother, but to understanding where it all went so terribly wrong, and to preventing it from happening with my own daughters.

This was also a fascinating read to me because it came on the heels of having read When Everything Changed, and this is an actual, personal (though somewhat second-hand) account of one woman's experience of having lived in an era when even the brightest, most motivated and ambitious women were encouraged to squelch any dreams they may have had outside of getting married, raising children, and maintaining households.

I really enjoyed this book and found it moving and thought-provoking. It's a quick read, and mine's up for grabs.

Empress Orchid (novel)

2010-10-19T10:01:00.000-07:00

Empress Orchid by Anchee Min

The book opens with the title character at seventeen years old, left in poverty with her mother, sister and brother after the death of their father, a political figure in nineteenth century China. Orchid is given a chance to interview to become an Imperial Concubine, as the current Emperor is looking for mates to produce an heir to the throne. After being selected as an Imperial Concubine, she is given the rank of Fourth Wife and ends up producing the Emperor's only male heir (who will become "The Last Emporer"). The Emperor dies when his son is only five years old, amid much political and social unrest in China, and Orchid manages to eventually become the most powerful woman in China, although the book doesn't take the reader that far.

Based on actual history and people, this is a fictionalized, first-person, and sympathetic account of Empress Dowager Cixi's early life in the Forbidden City. Although rich in details pertaining to customs, beliefs, landscape and history, I found that the story tended to drag for long periods. The characters all seemed shallow, and it was difficult to relate or feel sympathetic to any of them. The author tends to use some verbage which I think is probably historically incorrect (did anyone really say "potty" back in the mid-1800s, or even "retarded"?), which I found irritating. Without spoiling anything, the story ends with a weird surprise regarding Empress Orchid's sister, which is never developed or explained, and, of course, the predictable love interest, which I don't know is historically accurate or just part of the fiction of the novel, but seemed unlikely to me. It does show a fascinating glimpse of the lives of concubines and eunuchs (eunuchs: an excellent example of the totally effed-up things we humans do to one another), and life during the Second Opium War.

I think this book might appeal more to someone especially interested in Chinese history. I read it because it's the current selection for my book club; I was glad to finally be done with it.

book give-away

2010-10-14T15:03:00.000-07:00

A short while back, my daughter won a Dr. Phil gift basket at a Dodger game. It came with a stack of books written by Dr. Phil and his wife, Robin.

My daughter, the book lover that she is, proudly gathered them into her arms and whisked them off to her room. More than once I've gone in to get her up for school and found her reading one of these new treasures. I was impressed, a little shocked even. But last night she brought them all into my room and asked if I could find a home for the books. Turns out, they were just a tad over her head.

at least she tried Ü

I figured I would put them up for grabs here.
First replied, first served.
Leave me a comment with the title you'd like and your email address so I can get with you on the shipping address. The offer is good til the end of the month and then I will figure out something else to do with them. So, for anyone interested ... here is the list!

~~Self Matters: Creating Your Life from the Inside Out~~
~~(autographed, hard cover)~~

NO LONGER AVAILABLE

Real Life: Preparing for the 7 Most Challenging Days of Your Life
(autographed, hard cover)

Family First: Your Step-by-Step Guide for Creating a Phenomenal Family
(autographed, paperback)

Love Smart: find the One You Want - Fix the One You Got
(autographed, hard cover)

The Ultimate Weight Solution: the 7 Keys to Weight Loss Freedom
(autographed, paperback)

Christmas in my Home and Heart
(hard cover)

Inside My Heart: Choosing to Live with Passion and Purpose
(paperback)

From My Heart to Yours: Life Lessons on Faith, Family and Friendship
(hard cover)

Not Without My Sister

2010-10-07T10:15:00.000-07:00

Not Without My Sister: The True Story of Three Girls Violated and Betrayed by Kristina Jones, Celeste Jones and Juliana Buhring

Kristina, Celeste and Juliana openly share the painfully disturbing memories of their life in a religious cult, The Children of God (also known as The Family International). Each woman, born to the same man, discusses her own experience as a second generation member - being torn from her parents and siblings, being left in the care of strangers, having the very basic of freedoms being ripped away as she is abused by those expected to protect her.

These women take us through the teachings and practices of the followers of David Berg and through their own lives of being moved from one country to another, always trying to stay one step ahead of the authorities, and always defensive of their beliefs. They show us the power of blind faith and how the desire to believe can overwhelm conscience and instinct, forcing one to believe they are weak simply because they doubt.

I just finished my second reading of this book. My first reading was haunted by the realization that this is not a work of fiction based on a made up city, in a made up land. The reading of the reviews on Amazon.com only made me see more clearly that this isn't even an isolated occurrence of abuse that happened in a tiny little nothing sort of town in a country few have ever heard of. Many of these homes were set in the center of some of the biggest cities around the world. The second reading made me associate the births and lives of these women with my own, them being raised in the same decades I was raised, having children within years of my own, and the reality that as of 2005, there were still active homes and members practicing the twisted teachings and beliefs of self proclaimed prophets.

I recommend this book to anyone who works with children, more so to those who work with children who have been abused and neglected. These women effectively describe how one can remain in a hostile, abusive situation, that they know is wrong, because of the lies and fears they have been fed about life outside the only world they know. It also accurately describes the resilience, the unconditional love and the ease of forgiveness these children have for their parents, despite their involvement, or lack of responsibility taken, in their abuse.

While working with abused and neglected children, it always amazed me at how readily children want for their abusers and how easily they let go of the memories in hope of change. I was sad at how easily they seemed to forget, knowing they would be let down again, but I also felt hope for them, that their abuser would see the forgiveness given by the child as a gift - a chance to make things right.

It is never easy to read about situations like this, but pretending they don't happen is foolish.

Meeting Mr. Wrong

2010-09-30T09:21:00.000-07:00

Meeting Mr. Wrong; the Romantic Misadventures of a Southern Belle by Stephanie Snowe.

I "met" the author on her old blog (Jason. For the love of God - the link to her current blog is there) I adore her wit and her 'put it all out there' way of writing about her life. I'd initially put off reading her book because I didn't want it to change the way I read her blog. I still wanted it to be fresh and alive for me and for some reason I worried it would begin to read more like a reality TV series ... you know? not really reality??

I gave in this summer and ordered it (my bookstore didn't carry it and neither did my kindle ... hmpf!), I was not disappointed and still look forward to her current posts online.

The book starts out with Stephanie's new husband proclaiming "I don't love you. I never did! As soon as them babies come out, I'm divorcing you!"

Seriously, it's on page 1!

She takes us through the ups and downs of life after divorce, with twins and a sense of humor leading the way. Through the issues of internet dating, grown men that live with their moms, workplace set ups, dealing with family perceptions of where you should be at in life, and did I mention, she has twins??

It's a roller coaster ride, but one that Stephanie shares with humor and dignity (even when she thinks she's lost it). I enjoyed every bit of it, even the dates from hell, because I could gag, cringe, cry and laugh with her. I recommend it to anyone looking for a fun, quick, chick lit read ... and my copy is up for grabs!

The Unit (novel)

2010-09-24T10:16:00.000-07:00

The Unit by Ninni Holmqvist

This Swedish author's debut novel puts us in a dystopia set in the near future. There are two classes of people in this time - the "dispensable", the middle aged who have yet to start a family or create ties that make them useful in society, and the "necessary", those who have started families and are contributing to the growth of society, or are of a profession that is considered valuable to the society (professors, doctors, etc).

The dispensable are brought in during their respective birth months, women upon turning 50, and men upon turning 60, to a Unit where they are housed while living out their remaining days. These Units have wonderful accommodations, each person having their own apartments and access to dining, shopping, entertainment, parks, pools, gyms, and the such. For these people, who have typically lived on little money and few friends, this tends to be a favorable option. They are surrounded by people, much like them, and are put in an environment much better than the one they'd had in the "community". In return for the monetarily free life they live, they are used as guinea pigs to experimental treatments meant to better the lives of the necessary people in the outside community and they are expected to donate organs to them until their "final donation" of the most vital organs.

This story begins upon author, Dorrit Weger's arrival at the Unit and follows her through the ups and downs of her stay. She makes wonderful friends, continues her writing, and even falls in love. She finds comfort in finally being able to be herself without being looked down upon for her life style and the choices she's made.

This book was a great read. I did find small parts of it annoyingly repetitive, but it didn't turn me away from the underlying feeling that this may not be too far off from reality. When we let society dictate our worth and in turn allow laws to be created that support the "values" of social and economic growth over a person's individuality, this is quite possibly the result.

Despite the outcome you feel lingering within the pages, the book is not all sadness and suppression (tho I did shed a tear or two towards the end). Friendship and love bring out the humor among the dispensable, and even some compassion from the necessary.

It's not a book I would recommend to everybody, I would say you'll either really enjoy it, or you'll find it totally unappealing, there isn't much middle ground to stand on. I ordered it on my kindle after the sample read piqued my curiosity and upon the recommendation of a friend. Sorry, you'll have to decide for yourself.

happy reading!

Tinkers (novel)

2010-09-22T21:37:00.000-07:00

Tinkers by Paul Harding

In this debut novel, Paul Harding tells the story of the last few days of an elderly man dying as he's surrounded by his family. While the author does touch on the man's physical state as he dies, the story really takes place much more inside the man's head. As George Washington Crosby dies over a period of several days, his life "flashes" before him, though more slowly than what we've come to think of as one's life flashing before them. Various memories are recounted, mostly from George's childhood, growing up as the eldest son of an epileptic father (at a time when epilepsy was considered a form of insanity) and a bitter mother. George, in his twilight years, becomes a repairer of antique clocks; his father was a peddler and repairer of various household goods; hence the title "Tinkers"; both father and son tinkered. The author's real gift is in his prose; he deftly describes both items and scenes in a very visual way, although some of the descriptions were too wordy and complicated for me, as the inner workings of a clock, for instance.

It's not a long book - under 200 pages. Still, it took me a bit of work to get through. It's one of those books with reviews on the back cover touting it as "remarkable," etc., that leave me feeling like there might be something wrong with me that I didn't love it as much as I was supposed to. (And it did win a Pulitzer Prize.) It's a good book, but I didn't think it was great.

Mine's up for grabs; if you want it, say the word.

When Everything Changed (non-fiction)

2010-09-08T14:52:00.001-07:00

When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of American Women From 1960 to the Present by Gail Collins

Think you know all about "Women's Lib" and the sexual revolution? For most of us born anytime after the early 1960s, these are abstract concepts that seem outdated. Something that happened a long time ago that doesn't have a whole lot to do with everyday life for us now. Although there is still occasional talk of "sexism" and "chauvinism," women of my generation and younger take for granted that they have the same rights and opportunities that their male counterparts do.

But it wasn't always like this. In fact, a mere half-century ago, a woman was kicked out of court, where she had gone to pay a traffic ticket, because she was wearing slacks. And so the book opens, giving us the full story of how women in America went from being "chattel," with very few rights or opportunities outside of marrying very young and producing offspring, to setting their sights as far as the White House and as high as the moon.

It took a little work to get into the book, as it is full of history and facts and reads a bit like a textbook. But the author does a wonderful job of holding the reader's interest with her entertaining style and with lots of relatable anecdotes. I'm glad I stuck it out and read the whole thing - it took me a few weeks, but it was well worth it.

This one is my book club's current pick; the discussion in a couple weeks should be very interesting, especially given that several of our members will be bringing their mothers along to give their perspectives on how life has been for them living on both ends of the women's movement.

I'm keeping my copy - maybe my daughters will read it one day. I definitely recommend it, though!

The Shack

2010-09-07T06:59:00.000-07:00

Throwing another "God" book into the mix here, the much talked about The Shack by Wm. Paul Young.

It's about a man, Mack, whose young daughter was abducted and murdered by a serial killer. Several years later he finds a note supposedly from God, asking to meet him at the shack where evidence of his daughter's murder was recovered.

When he arrives at the shack, Mack has an experience with God. Whether it was an actual experience or a dream or whatever is up to the reader. Mack meets God, who appears as the Holy Trinity in three rather unexpected forms. During his time with God, Mack expresses his anger at God for the loss of his daughter as God tries to explain to him why bad things happen and how to forgive.

In spite of the presence of The Father, The Son and the Holy Spirit, I didn't find the book to be overly Christian, just intensely spiritual. It certainly packs an emotional punch and I found myself in tears of sadness and joy several times.

Mack certainly has reason to be angry at God, and I'm not quite sure I buy into God's explanation for it all, or even if it's God's explanation or rather the author's explanation. That's a question for theologians.

It's not a very long book and worth the read. Perhaps some will find comfort in it.

This one's on my Kindle.

Eat, Pray, Love

2010-09-03T08:28:00.000-07:00

I happened to see Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat, Pray, Love on the sale shelf at Borders and had to see what all the hype was about. I've had friends tell me the book changed their lives.

After a bitter divorce, the author sets out to Italy, India, and Indonesia. In Italy, she indulges in the food, in India she learns meditation, and in Indonesia she learns to fall in love again.

I'm glad that Elizabeth Gilbert is such an engaging writer, because my first thought on reading this book was "Of COURSE you can go off and find yourself when you're getting paid to do it and have no husband/kids/job responsibilities!" But after I got over my original eye-rolling over the premise, I really enjoyed reading about her journey to self-awareness.

For me, it wasn't life changing or even inspirational, but more of a pleasant travelogue.

This one's up for grabs.

Losing My Religion (memoir)

2010-08-14T09:05:00.001-07:00

Losing My Religion: How I Lost My Faith Reporting on Religion in America - and Found Unexpected Peace by William Lobdell

I came across this title purely by chance; I saw it on a friend's to-read list on goodreads.com. The title immediately struck a chord with me, as I've spent the last few years being somewhat preoccupied with having lost my religion (and faith) and trying to fit in in a community whose vast majority is made up of devout Christians. I wanted to read about someone else's experience going down the path of believer to non-believer.

The book didn't disappoint. In it, William Lobdell (who has a great blog) recounts how he became "born-again." Delving headlong into his new found faith, he prayed and prayed for a job covering the "religion beat" with the Los Angeles Times. After a number of years, his prayers are answered. But covering religious stories showed the author the ugly underbelly of organized religion - particularly in the Catholic church, but in all major religions as well - including horrific sexual abuse against children by the clergy and the church's not only covering up the crimes but vilifying the victims, mass abuse of donor funds, and fraudulent faith healers, among other things. Most of all, what Mr. Lobdell witnessed over time was the fact that the vast majority of people who profess to walk in the light of the Lord talk the talk but don't walk the walk. They don't regularly practice acts of Christian charity, tolerance and compassion, statistically they do not live morally superior lives to those of their unbelieving counterparts, they commit the same crimes of law, ethics, and morality, and they have the same struggles as everyone else. In other words, believing in God and professing to live according to the laws of the bible does not generally improve the quality of anyone's life; generally speaking, God is not making a difference in people's lives - not even devout Christians' lives - because God doesn't exist.

These observations finally led the author to the conclusion that there is no God, that God is only a myth and a fantasy created by people. At first the revelation is frightening and painful to him, but eventually he discovers a new found peace, knowing that this short life here on earth is our one and only shot, and we should make the most - and the best - of it.

Although my journey from belief to non-belief was far less dramatic than the author's, so much of what he lays out in this book resonates with me. This is a very compelling read, for believers and non-believers alike.

I read this on my iPad, so can't pass it along, but go buy yourself a copy!

Olive Kitteridge

2010-08-10T21:45:00.001-07:00

Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout

A series of intertwined short stories, this book is a portrayal of a small east coast town and some of its inhabitants, all struggling the same universal struggles all people have. The book's main character is a cantankerous junior high school math teacher, Olive Kitteridge, whose story winds its way through the book, with some of the stories focusing on her and some only featuring her presence in passing. She's a hard nut to crack; it's hard to like her, and I found myself not liking in her things I see in myself that I don't like, so in that way it became somewhat self-reflective for me. By the end of the book, the reader hopefully comes to have compassion for Olive, even if they never do end up liking her. In a lot of ways, she's the best and the worst in all of us, and what I liked about her character was that she was very real - not beautiful or brilliant or especially charitable, but rather just an average, flawed human being.

The prose is rich and beautiful; I was reminded of Kent Haruf, all of whose books I read and loved.

I read this for my book club and am offering it up for grabs to my book club friends first.

The Case For Christ

2010-08-10T21:22:00.000-07:00

The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel

I was asked to read this book by an acquaintance who is a devout Christian. My hunch is that she hoped that this book might convince me that not only was Jesus Christ in fact a real person who lived and breathed, but that he is/was the son of God, that he did, in fact, die nailed to a cross in order to save mankind from sin, that he was in fact resurrected, etc., etc., and of course, if all this is true, then it must be true that God exists. All of this is stuff of which I am not a believer; hence the attempt to convince me.

Written by a self-proclaimed life-long skeptic who finds God and converts to Christianity, the author uses his background as an investigative journalist to "investigate" the authenticity of Jesus Christ (and therefore, God). While he certainly has a flair for dramatic writing, he fails miserably to actually make anything resembling a solid case for the existence of Jesus, as the Messiah or anything else. While he purports to set forth "evidence," sprinkled liberally throughout the book are statements like "We must assume . . . " and "It is unlikely that . . ." and "It can be presumed that . . ." In other words, a lot of supposition, which is not evidence. His supposed "eyewitness accounts" of Jesus consist of the assumption that the gospels were written by Matthew, Mark and Luke; the fact is that (a) there is also no evidence that any of those men are anything more than mythical figures, and (b) there is no evidence that they wrote the gospels. Mr. Strobel sets forth his "case" by interviewing a number of "experts," all of whom, conveniently, are devout believers. He doesn't interview a single skeptic or secular scholar.

The fact is, there still is not a shred of forensic, scientific or archaeological evidence of the existence of Jesus Christ - and certainly not of any of the events the bible claims happened in this Jesus figure's lifetime.

This book is propaganda at its best. I simply cannot imagine that it could succeed in tipping the balance for a skeptic or convincing a non-believer; only someone who is already a firm believer will be able to swallow what the author sets forth.

How to Have a Book Club

2010-07-29T22:06:00.000-07:00

Not that there's only one way to have a book club! But here's how my book club does it up.

We - a handful of friends and I - formed our little book club seven years ago (it's hard to believe it's been that long!). Originally, we formed it as an extension of the MOMS Club we were members of, but it wasn't long before we realized that having to adhere to the rules of that organization was holding us back from making our book club what we wanted it to be. Initially we met during the day to discuss the books we read, with our tykes scampering about at our feet. Sounds cute and sweet, doesn't it? It wasn't. I strongly advise anyone wanting to start a book club to hold the discussions sans kids. This is your opportunity to be an adult, among other adults, and to partake of adult conversation, and hopefully adult beverages.

We started out as a group of about a half-dozen stay-home moms, and we've grown to a group of women who include stay-home moms, teachers, a lawyer, a college professor, an actuary, and a number of other careers and identities. The group is ever-changing; there are a handful of us who have been members since the group's inception, and over the years lots of other women have joined and un-joined. There are officially roughly twenty members right now, and a little more than half of that number comprises the core group of members who are diligently active.

I am the unofficial coordinator of the group, which really means nothing more than maintaining a roster and sending out announcements and reminders via email of upcoming reading selections and dates and times of discussions. A couple years ago we started using qlubb.com, which is a really cool way of communicating with any sort of cohesive group you may be involved in.

So here's what we do: we take turns choosing books for the group to read. We read and discuss one book per month, skipping December and instead having a holiday dinner/gift-book exchange that month. Whomever chooses the book hosts the discussion for that book. There is no set order - we don't draw names or assign months, nor do we vote on books. Fortunately, we are an active enough group that members reserve a spot to host way ahead of time, so we usually have books and hosts signed up months in advance.

The discussions are hosted in the evening at the host's home. There is generally lots of food, talk and laughter. We try to use a published discussion guide (which can often be found in the back of the book, on the publisher's website, or on the author's website) to facilitate the discussion of each book, but once in a while we read a book that has no published discussion guide, as in the case of the recently read and discussed The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. My friend Robin writes really excellent discussion questions though.

Sometimes the host might try to keep the theme or setting of the book in mind when preparing the evenings snacks. For instance, the very first book we read as a group was Memoirs of a Geisha, and at the discussion my friend Judy provided these little Japanese ice cream things, which I remember were really yummy. I hosted our discussion of Henrietta Lacks earlier this week, and here is my amusingly weak attempt at creating snacks and desserts that resemble cells, in keeping with the book's theme (go ahead and laugh!):

As I said, we usually use a discussion guide to . . . uh, guide the discussion. But the discussions inevitably digress and meander down different paths and we often talk about our own life experiences and views about different topics. This is what I love so much about my book club - it's very casual and intimate and has provided a means of getting to know and connect with other women. I have made some very dear friends through my book club.

We read all kinds of genres: classics, contemporary fiction, memoirs, nonfiction, mysteries - you name it. In fact, here's a list of all the books we've read thus far, starting seven years ago!

Memoirs of a Geisha*

Good in Bed**

The Christmas Box*

The Five People You Meet in Heaven*

The DaVinci Code

Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West**

Cry, the Beloved Country*

The Secret Life of Bees*

The Red Tent*

The Awakening*

A Prayer for Owen Meany*

I Don’t Know How She Does It*

The Kite Runner*

The Stone Diaries**

Life of Pi*

Dress Your Family in Corduroy & Denim*

Frankenstein*

Angry Housewives Eating Bonbons**

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan*

East of Eden*

On Hitler’s Mountain**

A Walk in the Woods

The Time Traveler's Wife*

Middlesex*

Pride and Prejudice

The Journeys of Socrates

One Hundred Years of Solitude

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn*

Running With Scissors*

To Kill a Mockingbird*

She’s Come Undone**

The Memory Keeper’s Daughter*

A Thousand Splendid Suns*

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

The Shadow of the Wind

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings*

A Long Way Gone*

Road Map to Holland**

…And Ladies of the Club

The Gargoyle*

My Name is Asher Lev

Murder on the Orient Express

Saving Fish From Drowning*

Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet*

Franny and Zooey

Mommie Dearest*

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo*

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks**

Whooo-eeeee, that's a lotta books! Up next are Olive Kitteridge, followed by When Everything Changed.

In our group, there really isn't any pressure to read every single book chosen. My own personal feeling is: there are too many good books out there to waste your time struggling through a book you really don't enjoy. I usually give a book 50 pages to grab me; if it doesn't, I'm done with it.

Also, the point of a book club, in my opinion anyway, shouldn't be to choose books that everyone will love, but rather to choose books that will be the basis for good discussions. Even a book someone passionately hates can spur a provocative discussion.

Anyway, if you've ever thought about starting a book club, it's not too hard. Just gather together some friends who love to read and who are willing to take turns hosting, and get reading!

* books I actually read
** books I chose and hosted

Discussion Questions for The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

2010-07-28T16:05:00.000-07:00

Back in March, I read The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot. I was so impacted by the story that I decided to choose it as a reading selection for my book club. However, as much as I searched, I was unable to find a published discussion guide for the book to facilitate a discussion. So my friends Robin, Angela, and I collaborated and came up with a list of the following discussion questions, which I hope might help anyone else out there looking on the internet for a discussion guide for this book:

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks - Discussion Questions

1. The passage in which the initial fated cells were removed from Henrietta Lacks’s body reads as follows (see page 33):

“With Henrietta unconscious on the operating table in the center of the room, her feet in stirrups, the surgeon on duty, Dr. Lawrence Wharton, Jr., sat on a stool between her legs. He peered inside Henrietta, dilated her cervix, and prepared to treat her tumor. But first – though no one had told Henrietta that TeLinde was collecting samples or asked if she wanted to be a donor – Wharton picked up a sharp knife and shaved two dime-sized pieces of tissue from Henrietta’s cervix: one from her tumor, and one from the healthy cervical tissue nearby. Then he placed the samples in a glass dish.”

Bearing in mind that those two tissue samples removed from Henrietta were not removed in an attempt to treat her cancer, but rather purely for purposes of research, was it wrong for the doctor to remove the sample tissue in the first place? Was it wrong for Dr. Gey to collect those samples for the purpose of trying to grow them in controlled conditions? Does the end – i.e., the immeasurable benefit to humankind resulting from those tissue samples – justify the means – i.e., removing tissue from a person without their consent or knowledge?

2. Discuss the process of taking these cancerous cells and growing them in the “auger” or medium that allowed them to continue to multiply. Was it her human cell line?

(Note: As genetic knowledge has increased HeLa is: not really a human cell line at all because it involves a genetic fusion of a papilloma virus and Henrietta’s cervical cells. The hybrid has its own genome and attempts have been made to have the cell line recognized as a species in its own right. Of course this cell line also contaminated other cell lines in labs around the world. In a Feb. 2010 paper, HeLa was found as a contaminant of 106 out of 306 cell lines tested.

3. Did you get the impression that Henrietta was treated any differently than a rich, white woman would have been (assuming the hospital was also collecting cell samples)?

4. How do you feel about knowing that you still do not have total control over your body once you go to see a doctor? If you discovered that tissue routinely removed from your body at some point in the past went on to significantly benefit science and research, would you feel that you should somehow be compensated? What do you think is more important – a person’s personal rights over their own tissue, or contributing to science and research for the benefit of all humankind?

5. Was it a good thing for the members of the Lacks family that the author wrote this book? Was this attempt different from previous attempts to write about the Lacks family and Henrietta in particular?

6. How much impact on the Lacks family members’ long term lives did Henrietta’s early demise have? Do you think that her children’s lives would have turned out significantly different had Henrietta not died so young?

7. Was it hubris, lack of “patient experience,” or frankly, sheer stupidity on the part of the researchers who contacted the family later for blood/DNA samples, to think the family understood what they were doing and why were they doing it?

8. Why has the discovery of the existence of HeLa cells been so difficult for the Lacks family? Discuss the family’s ignorance and their lack of medical knowledge. Why did it take until 2001, 50 years after Henrietta’s death, for a researcher at John Hopkins to show Deborah the cells and tell her these weren’t Henrietta’s regular cells, just trillions of cancerously transformed cells, and that there was never going to be a clone of her mother?

9. Do you think the family is owed money for the sale of the HeLa cells? Do you agree with their feeling that they should be compensated?

10. Do you think that the attitude among some of the Lacks family members that they should be monetarily compensated for Henrietta’s contribution to science is born out of their poverty and/or oppression based on their race? Do you think if the family were financially comfortable, white, and not the subjects of regular discrimination that their feelings of being owed compensation might be different?

11. When the doctor of the patient, Mr. Moore, lied to him about the financial value of his cells, do you think the doctor behaved unethically, and the court should have ruled against him?

12. What did the author hope to accomplish by writing this book? Did she accomplish what she set out to do? To what do you attribute the family’s change of heart regarding the HeLa cells?

13. Was the presence of the author in the book disruptive or appropriate?

14. How realistic was the characterization, especially of Deborah and Zakariyya? Would you want to meet any of them? Did you like them?

15. What life lessons can be learned from this account?

16. Do you think the bad things that happened to the family were based on their race, particularly in regards to Elsie (Henrietta’s daughter who was institutionalized) and Henrietta’s hospital care? Was it forgivable based on the time period or should amends be made?

17. How does the setting figure into the book? Is the setting a character? Does it come to life? Did you feel you were experiencing the time and place in which the book was set? How did you feel at the end when Clover was gone? Do you think this was an allegory for Henrietta’s family’s travails?

18. How realistic is it for Courtney Speed, the grocery store owner in Turner Station, to start a museum?

19. Discuss the medical breakthroughs from HeLa cells. Have your attitudes or ideas towards medical research changed in any way due to reading this book?

20. Ownership of genetic material is still a vexed issue. Many human genes have been patented and a battle is currently being fought through the U.S. courts between doctors and a biotech company owning the patents for genes used in breast-cancer research screening. What are your thoughts about research and patents in this now “profit making” industry?

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest

2010-07-23T10:31:00.001-07:00

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest by Stieg Larsson

This, the final installment of the Millenium Trilogy, picks up exactly where The Girl Who Played With Fire left off, with our unlikely heroine, Lisbeth Salander, critically injured. Whereas I could hardly put the first two books in this series down, this one took me close to a month to read - partly because I'm still trying to figure out how to read productively on my iPad, and partly because this book is quite a bit less action-packed than its two predecessors. It was a bit of a disappointment to have most of this installment play out with Lisbeth confined to a hospital room; she's much more fun when she's out kicking bad guys' asses. This book contains a lot of background on the players in the story, as well as strategic planning on the parts of both the good guys and the bad guys, and the action doesn't really pick up until nearer to the end. It's worth reading to wrap up the trilogy, but I didn't find it as compelling as the first two. Still, Lisbeth Salander is definitely one of the most memorable characters in contemporary fiction, and I am looking forward to movie versions of these books.

eReader Reviews: Amazon Kindle

2010-07-06T18:59:00.000-07:00

I love my Kindle ... with big red sparkly hearts kind of love!

I got it for Christmas last year. Hubby asked what I wanted, then promptly told me it was too confusing and to order it for myself. So I did. I was downloading books for it before I even officially opened it as a Christmas gift ... because I was that darn excited!

and I have yet to be disappointed

I will add that my decision to buy an eReader reader was met with opposition. Other book loving friends gave me tons of reasons why I shouldn't give in and give up the smell and feel of a brand new novel in my hands. To be honest, I do love having a new book in my hands ... and also to be honest, I read through a book in a matter of days and then it's off to find another book to read. I don't have the kind of time I like to invest in a visit to the bookstore to do this more than once or twice a month. But with my Kindle? it's all at my fingertips.

In some sense I did feel I was betraying my book lover status. I enjoy having a book in my hands, turning the pages, noticing the imperfections in printing, and when I'm done, judging the intensity of the story by how curled the front cover is. But the selling point for an eReader was this - I own thousands of dollars in books. I have a closet full of books I have read, traded, enjoyed and reread. If my house were to catch fire tomorrow, all of those books would be gone. The books on my Kindle, however, would be a download away, I've already paid for them and they are saved for me out in "cyber-ville". Yes, I might have to buy a new Kindle, but because I carry it in my purse everywhere I go, it is doubtful.

What I like about my Kindle: The books download quickly. I have only found two titles that I have actively searched for (since November 2009) that have NOT been available. I have taken my Kindle to afternoon soccer games and read with no glare issues. and the charge lasts and lasts and L A S T S ... I just took it with me on our 3 week vacation and only charged it once - the night before we left - because if it was gonna die, I didn't want to lose it on my 5 hour flight home!

The pricing of books is reasonable and I often compare prices. I am not an eReader snob, I like to buy the occasional "flip the pages" books too! There are tons of free books available as well. Many are offered free everywhere, but some are new releases or lesser known authors trying to be read. It has opened my eyes to genres I never would have come near otherwise.

I can access the internet on it, but it is very slow in loading some pages. I can facebook on it, play some games, but ultimately I prefer to use it for reading. Those are just bonus features for me.

The only complaint my 10 year old daughter has with it (because she is the one constantly borrowing it) is that there is no backlight. Personally, the backlighting on my phone gives me a headache if I have to read from it for too long, so the absence is a pleasure for me, but I can see the need for those who don't use a reading lamp at night.

I do have to add, because I'm weird like that, Target has begun selling the Kindle in their stores ... and anyone that knows the slightest bit about me, knows I absolutely love Target too! It was meant to be ;)

eReader Reviews: Nook

2010-07-05T20:47:00.000-07:00

This is a review of the Nook, Barnes & Noble's eReader, by my friend, Caryl:

I am in love with an electronic device. Sad, but true. My Nook has been my constant companion since my classroom parents gave it to me at the end of the school year. The only issue I have with the Nook is that I cannot understand why the manufacturer did not put a backlight feature on the screen to allow the Nook to be read in the dark. This is the most glaring omission I have found. Additionally, it was rather expensive and did not come with a cover, which is absolutely necessary to protect the Nook from damage.

I love the fact that my Nook is so user friendly. A monkey could figure out how to use it. I really like how easy it is to download books. I hate when I find out about a good book and I am all gung ho to read it and the store is out. Then I have to order it and wait. I am not good at waiting. With my Nook, I just download it and in about 15 seconds, voila, I have my book. The prices are very reasonable too! At first, I was very concerned that I would not like reading electronically. I do not like reading on the computer and always print out the documents I need to read. For, example, if I am proof-reading my report card comments, it is difficult for me to be accurate without having the actual paper copy to read. I feared that reading on the Nook would be a similar problem for me. I almost did not open it so I could return it, even though I had been dying to have one for a while. My husband talked me into giving it a try. It feels just like reading a book. I love that I can adjust the font size for my old eyes too!

The only thing that really upsets me about having a Nook is that now my husband feels there is no longer a reason for me to have an iPad. Rats!

Thanks, Caryl!

eReader Reviews: Apple iPad

2010-07-01T12:55:00.001-07:00

Yes, I recently splurged on an iPad, being the Gadget Girl I seem to have become. I've been very ambivalent about the whole eReader movement, to be honest. I love books - actual paper books. I love the feel of them, I love the smell of them, I love the weight of them in my hands, I love being able to dog-ear pages and underline passages that strike me. I love having bookshelves in my house stuffed with books, and I love to pass along books I've read and enjoyed. eReaders obviously aren't capable of most of those features.

Still, there's an attraction to being able to download a book you want in seconds rather than having to wait for it to ship from Amazon or driving to the bookstore and hoping they have it in stock (although, really, I adore hanging out in a bookstore; it's heaven to me). It's also cool that you can store a pretty sizable library on this device that fits in a decent-size purse.

Even so, I had no interest in getting an eReader for myself until Apple unveiled the iPad recently. I'm completely sold on Apple products. I have an iPhone, which I adore, and we made the switch from PCs to both an Apple desktop and an Apple laptop about a year ago, and I'll never willingly go back to a PC.

An iPad isn't cheap, though. Even the most bare-bones model (with the least memory and with WiFi but no 3G) is a couple hundred dollars more than a Kindle or Nook. I hemmed and hawed about it for a while, knowing that if I was going to take the plunge, I wanted one with the works. And although I absolutely could not justify the expense of what amounts to a toy, I also couldn't get it out of my head. So I bought one. I got the one with 32GB of memory plus WiFi and 3G, and I'll just say that it cost a pretty penny. Also, at least when I made the decision to buy it (about a month ago), iPads with WiFi + 3G were not available in the Apple stores, so I had to order mine from the Apple site and wait almost two weeks to receive it. (I like to think that Apple spent that two weeks lovingly building an iPad specially for me. Although I'm sure that's not actually the case.)

So now that I've had it for a couple of weeks, what's my take on it? I love it. But I have to say that I don't love it for the eReader aspect. I am still getting used to reading a book in an electronic format, and in all honesty, I can't see this ever completely replacing actual paper books for me. It's convenient: yes, I can download a book I want and have it in my hot little hands lickety split. That's cool. I can build an entire library and carry it around in my purse. I can read without turning a light on because the screen is lit. Also, you can download iBooks, which is Apple's eReader app, but you can also download the Kindle (Amazon) app and the Barnes & Noble eReader app, which is a smart thing to do because: (a) not all books are available on iBooks, and (b) you can shop among the different apps to get the best price on an e-book. Not all of the eReader apps operate exactly the same, however. For instance, in the iBooks app, you glide your finger over the screen to turn a page, and the page actually turns, just like a real book. In the Kindle app, the pages just slide from one to the next. Which is fine - it's really a matter of aesthetics and special effects I guess. iBooks is a full color app, so if you have a book with pictures, the pictures will appear in full color. I'm not sure if the other apps are full color or not.

What I don't love about the iPad as an eReader:

Because the iPad is really so much more than just an eReader, I find myself often distracted by all the other apps at my fingertips. In other words, I may sit down to read The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest on it, but I often find myself closing the book to play Words With Friends, or to check my email, because it's right there.
Reading on the iPad in bright sunlight is next to impossible. Plus there's glare on the screen.

All in all, I love my iPad, but not so much for the eReader functionality, although I know it was developed to compete with other eReaders. Like I said, though, it's so much more than an eReader. Although it's not a full-fledged computer, it's close. I can check my email, go on the internet, chat on Facebook, post to my blog, play games, watch videos, TV shows and Podcasts, store thousands of photos, creating a very portable photo album, and so much more.

I still can't say that the cost is justifiable, although I guess it just depends on what your means are. But sometimes it's okay to just get a new toy, even if you can't justify it, right?

Coming soon: reviews of Kindle and Nook. Check back!

The Boyfriend League

2010-06-26T20:17:00.000-07:00

The Boyfriend League by Rachel Hawthorne

Another Kindle limited time freebie, teen romance.

Dani is a baseball fanatic, but at 16 let's face it, boys are way up there on the interest list! With the help of her friend, they talk their families into hosting players for the summer collegiate league in hopes that they will find boyfriends for the summer. The plan is to house players so that they will introduce them to the rest of the team, their own guest being off limits.

But who can determine where their heart will end up?

Of course, our character HAD to end up hosting the hottest player on the team and trying to avoid her heart (and his) proves to be entertaining.

This is a very cute story. I could see enjoying it as a middle school-aged girl. The reviews from the other teens that offered their say, averaged 4.5 stars.

This is a quick and easy read, content and language is very clean and suitable for TWEENS.

God Don't Like Ugly

2010-06-26T19:52:00.000-07:00

God Don't Like Ugly by Mary Monroe.

This was a limited time freebie I downloaded to my Kindle. Set in the 1960s, this story brings together two black girls from very different worlds, struggling to make it through a changing America.

Dirt poor Annette lives with her mom after dad runs off with a rich white woman. They move from one run down place to another, Annette's mom working for various white families cleaning their homes and sometimes turning tricks for a little extra money. Annette's mom brings in a boarder to help with the bills, and he helps himself to Annette.

The trio makes it to Ohio and Annette finds relief in a new friend, Rhoda. Beautiful, rich and spoiled, Rhoda is everything Annette wants to be, and the fact that Rhoda WANTS to be her friend makes life bearable.

Together Annette and Rhoda make it through a difficult adolescence and share some HUGE secrets along the way. Annette overcomes her insecurities and becomes an independent adult.

In all honesty, the title turned me off, but FREE always adds a little push toward trying it out anyway. The story was a little depressing at times, but the friendship forming behind it pushed me to keep reading. That said, the end left me a little disappointed and unless they are offered for free, I doubt I will read it's sequel.

NOTE: rape and sex moderately covered

The Short Bus: A Journey Beyond Normal (memoir)

2010-06-24T22:26:00.000-07:00

The Short Bus: A Journey Beyond Normal by Jonathan Mooney

This book, as it turns out, is a jewel that has been sitting on my to-be-read bookshelf, gathering dust, for over a year.

The author, Jonathan Mooney, was diagnosed with dyslexia and ADHD in elementary school, and labeled "severely learning disabled." As a result, he was placed in special ed classes and grew up riding the proverbial "short bus" with the other special ed kids. The short bus, to the author, came to symbolize the feelings of marginalization for being different, or not normal.

As an adult, after graduating with honors from Brown University, Jon, still carrying around the pain of growing up different, buys an old short bus and goes on a three-month long odyssey from one end of the United States to the other and back again, meeting, interviewing, and profiling roughly a dozen "different" people along the way, ranging from a young deaf-blind girl who curses people out in sign language, to a teen labeled with ADHD, to a transgendered man who lives in a shack with no running water, to a young woman with Down syndrome, to a middle age man with autism - and several others in between. Jon goes on this journey hoping to come to terms with his own differences, hoping to learn from other individuals relegated to the fringes of society, and hoping most of all, to come out of the experience a different person. Along the way he faces his own prejudices and confronts his own notions of what's normal and what's not, and most of all, how arbitrary and mythical "normal" really is. He does come away from the experience changed, if only in the sense that he finally accepts himself for who and what he is.

I was so moved and impacted by this book. I laughed, and I cried, and I was moved by every single person the author met on his journey. I was, of course, drawn most of all to the young woman with Down syndrome, and I loved what seemed to be a very honest, genuine portrayal.

I have plans to expound on how this impacted me on my other blog, Finnian's Journey; stay tuned.

I highly encourage anyone touched in any way by difference or disability to read this book. Hell, I'd love everyone to read it, just to get a sense of what it's like to live one's life being made to feel different and therefore less than.

I'm keeping my copy; I underlined and highlighted so many passages, I can't give it away. But go get yourself a copy!

The Girl Who Played With Fire (fiction)

2010-06-16T09:26:00.001-07:00

The Girl Who Played With Fire by Stieg Larsson

In this sequel to The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, our pierced, tattooed, waif-like heroine, Lisbeth Salander, is back fighting bad guys with a vengeance. Mikael Blomkvist, hero investigative journalist is back, too. When two people working with Mikael to expose a vast, underground sex trade in Sweden are violently executed, Lisbeth becomes the prime murder suspect. Mikael, convinced of his friend's innocence, goes on a mission to uncover the real killer. Meanwhile, Lisbeth evades the authorities on the hunt for her and seeks her own form of justice while being forced to finally face up to her past.

Talk about a thriller! I stayed up nights reading until my eyes were burning - it was that hard to put down. I often realized that every muscle in my body was tense as I read, wondering what was going to happen next.

Larsson was a brilliant writer. I am absolutely in awe of the complexity of the plot, the development of characters who truly come to life on the pages, and how he was able to make the utterly unlikely seem completely possible.

Wow. That about sums it up. I can't wait to read the final installment of this trilogy, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest.

I'm keeping this one.

Half Broke Horses: A True Life Novel

2010-06-14T19:13:00.000-07:00

Half Broke Horses: A True Life Novel by Jeannette Walls tells the story of her grandmother on her mother's side. It's sort of a follow-up to her previous memoir The Glass Castle. I really think it's necessary to have read that book before reading this one because as dysfunctional as Ms. Walls family was, it's amazing that her grandmother is so practical!

I loved reading how Granny just got stuff done, no matter what it took. She was just a matter of fact, hard working lady and Jeannette Walls tells her story with admiration and really brings the lady to life, even though she seems larger than life!

Of course, since Granny died when Jeannette was young, the author has decided to call it a "true life novel" because she's not certain what stories from her family are true and what is fiction, which puts a bit of a damper on things.

Still, it's a quick, enjoyable read and a great look into how a strong woman survives in the wild west.

This one's on my Kindle.

The Audacity of Hope

2010-06-14T19:01:00.000-07:00

Wow, it took me FOREVER to read The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama. Mostly because I don't usually read political books, so it wasn't something I enjoyed reading, but felt obligated to read.

However, it is a good way to get in to our current president's head and see what he values. He touches on a wide range of subjects (religion, racism, health care, foreign affairs) but doesn't really seem to go into great depth on any of them. The most enlightening parts are when he shows how issues have affected him personally. He portrays himself as always trying to do the right thing, but often I see it as naiveté. I often agree with his ideals, but just wonder how we are supposed to pay for it all.

Personally, preferred his autobiography, Dreams From My Father to this book.

This one's up for grabs.

Let The Great World Spin

2010-06-14T18:41:00.000-07:00

Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann was my Book Club's selection a few months ago.

It tells the story of several characters lives on the day that a tightrope walker walked between the Twin Towers, which actually happened in August of 1974. This book also won the National Book Award in 2009.

It's certainly an ambitious piece of work. There are about a dozen different story lines to follow, and the story lines and characters often cross in unexpected ways.

And it captures that moment in time perfectly (not that I can remember 1974!). I really felt immersed in that time period and in particular, New York City during that time.

Unfortunately, with so many characters it was hard to really get to know any of them well and care for any of them. Just as you were getting a feel for them, their part of the story ends. It was a bit frustrating, but still worth the read.

This one's on my Kindle.

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (fiction)

2010-06-07T19:07:00.000-07:00

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

Thriller, murder mystery, (sort of) love story . . . this most definitely isn't the type of book I ever would have chosen on my own. In fact, I've seen it on the Bestsellers bookshelves at Barnes & Noble for months and never had any desire to buy it. Then it was chosen as this month's book for my book club so I decided to give it a try.

Set in Sweden, our hero is financial journalist Mikael Blomkvist, recently convicted of libel and as a result, with a career and reputation in the toilet. He is hired by Henrik Vanger, elderly patriarch of the elite Vanger family, an industrialist dynasty, to investigate the disappearance of his favorite niece almost forty years ago. Along the way, Mikael is aided by an unlikely heroine, Lisbeth Salander, brilliant hacker with a mysterious past and lots of secrets of her own. What they uncover is out of the realm of anything old Henrik Vanger could have imagined.

I had a bit of a hard time getting into the story, just because the first hundred pages or so covers a lot of financial mishmash, but once I got into the meat of the story, I was on the edge of my seat and had a hard time putting the book down. I loved it and highly recommend it - I am looking forward to delving into the sequel, The Girl Who Played With Fire.

I already gave my copy away, but go buy your own! Or check it out from the library! It's that good.

Another New Contributor!

2010-05-26T14:29:00.001-07:00

My friend, Mary, who doesn't have a blog, is joining us here as a contributor! Can't wait to hear about what you're reading Mary!

Burned

2010-05-22T16:03:00.001-07:00

Burned is the 7th book in the House of Night series written by author P.C. Cast and her daughter, Kristin Cast. It is part of the ever growing Young Adult Vampyre trend; almost a genre of it’s own these days.

The end of book 6 left us wondering what would happen to Zoey Redbird, Fledgling Vampyre High Priestess, whose soul was shattered when she witnessed the killing of her human consort and childhood friend/boyfriend, Heath. We soon find out that there are only 7 days to bring Zoey back from the Otherworld and it’s up to Aphrodite, Stark and Stevie Rae to figure out how.

Of course, no one has ever been brought back from the Otherworld successfully, so leave it to these teenaged vampyre fledglings to figure it all out on their own.

The good? The imprinting between Raven Mocker, Rephraim and Red Vampire Goddess, Stevie Rae looks like it could be a pretty interesting story line. Light and Darkness, good and evil … I’m all for that hook up and how they will get through it. But we will have to wait for another book in the series to run with that because it wasn’t covered in Book 7.

I’ll even admit to somewhat liking Aphrodite, who has been a darker influence in books past. She is coming into her own as a human prophetess and I kind of like her “no BS” attitude.

The bad? All kinds of bad in my opinion, (and I waited til I was done reading to check the reviews of others … many were not happy either). I’m not picky about the way a book is written, but I have found I am not fond of a book written from multiple character POVs. This book changes perspective way too often for my taste.

The second big bad point for me? The language. Now I have a potty mouth, but these are 17 year old kids talking like preteens just learning how to curse! Kind of made me laugh when the scene was supposed to keep me in anticipation.

I own the series complete so far and the books are up for grabs if you’re interested. Honestly, the first few were pretty good if you can allow yourself to pass over some typos, and if you can keep in mind that these are Young Adult Romance Novels.

The Lacuna

2010-05-22T11:32:00.000-07:00

I was looking forward to reading The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver, my book club's selection a few months ago.

The book tells the story of Harrison Shepherd, opening with him as a boy living in Mexico with his mother and following his life. It's a very ambitious book. It explores lots of themes--sexuality, politics, art--just to name a few.

I love Kingsolver's writing and her vivid metaphors in this book lived up to that expectation. And her love of history, recounting major events through Harrison Shepherd's life, was very interesting and informative.

However, several things really bothered me. First, most of the book is told through journal entries, letters and the recollections of friend of Harrison, which I found made it hard to really get to know the main character. It was an interesting way of storytelling, but I didn't feel any connection to Harrison because of it.

The other thing that bothered me was the dropping of a fictional character into major events in history. For a while he lives with real Mexican artists Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo and is present during Trotsky's assassination. And he becomes an important figure in the Hoover's Red Scare hearings. Then Kingsolver intersperses real newspaper articles with fake ones. Separating fact from fiction was difficult and felt too much like Forrest Gump to me in that sense.

Kingsolver also seems to make several comments reflecting past political situations and relating to our present day ones. She goes on about how the American public doesn't understand the nuances of socialism, complains about how the media stirs things up. The comparisons seem very obvious and I found them distracting.

Still, Kingsolver is an amazing writer and in spite of these flaws, it's a very interesting read, covering parts of history that I was unfamiliar with. I just wish I could have connected with the main character more.

This one's on my Kindle.

Miss Spitfire: Reaching Helen Keller

2010-05-22T11:18:00.000-07:00

I picked up Miss Spitfire: Reaching Helen Keller by Sarah Miller while volunteering at my 3rd grader's Book Fair. It's considered a "middle grade" book, reading level ages 9 - 12. Of course, I had to pick it up, since any book about special needs always gets my interest.

It tells the story from Annie Sullivan's perspective. Annie, of course, was Helen Keller's teacher. It's mostly about how Annie got through to Helen, although bits of Annie's life are introduced.

I was really impressed how much Annie was able to accomplish in a short period of time, although I think a lot of her methods would be considered a bit harsh today!

Even though the book is for kids, I learned a lot about Annie and Helen.

I've been trying to get my daughter to read this book, but she's not interested, so my copy's up for grabs.

The Lovely Bones

2010-05-22T11:01:00.000-07:00

I read The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold after seeing all those commercial for the movie (which I haven't seen yet).

The first chapter is about Susie Salmon's rape and murder. It wasn't as graphic or disturbing as I expected. The rest of the book explores the aftermath of the family, trying to find the perpetrator and dealing with the loss, while Susie watches from the other side.

I thought the explorations of grief as the surviving family was very well done, the way each of the family members reacts differently.

I enjoyed about half of the book. But one scene completely blew it for me. If you've ever seen the movie Heaven Can Wait, well, it suddenly just seemed tired and contrived. After that scene, I couldn't take the rest of the book seriously.

This one's on my Kindle.

Water For Elephants

2010-05-22T10:49:00.000-07:00

Maybe it was because I had just read several books that were atmospheric and depressing, but I found Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen to be a breath of fresh air.

I enjoyed the storytelling, splitting between the protagonist as an old man in a nursing home and his experience as a young man as a vet in a traveling circus. A love triangle, deaths, and behind the scenes at the circus captivated me. And I don't even like the circus.

It's a quick enjoyable read. Probably not introspective and thought provoking, but entertaining.

My copy's up for grabs!

Wench (novel)

2010-05-21T10:04:00.001-07:00

Wench by Dolen Perkins-Valdez

This debut novel tells the story of Lizzie, a young slave woman living on a Tennessee plantation in the 1850s who is claimed as what amounts to a concubine by her white master at the age of 13. Lizzie goes on to bear his children and live in the "big house" living a life of relative privilege compared to the field slaves. The trade-off is that she is expected to acquiesce to her master's sexual demands wherever and whenever he wishes, and she bears his children. The arrangement is for the most part accepted, although not without resentment, by the master's white wife, who cannot bear children. There is actually some tenderness between Lizzie and her master, and the reader is left wondering if it can be some form of love, although it is difficult to reconcile the scenes of tenderness with the scenes in which Lizzie is chained or tied up.

Over the course of three summers, her master takes her to a resort (which actually existed, although this is a fictional story) up North, in "free" country, where southern white masters take their slave concubines and live openly as couples for a few weeks each year. At this resort, Lizzie befriends three other slave women who share her circumstances, and it is here that she begins to dream of escape from her bondage, and freedom. Thoughts of her children back on the plantation, who are not only her master's children, but also his legal property, tear at her heart, however, leaving her to struggle with the decision of whether to stay with her master - and therefore her children - or make a run for it.

I think it's pretty common knowledge that white masters in fact did often have sexual relations with their female slaves, and that these unions produced a multitude of offspring. However, this novel lends a new dimension to these relationships. I'm not sure how accurate a depiction it is - is it possible for a person to own another human being and see that person as both a piece of property and a love interest?

It's a good book, and would make a good book club selection. It's easy to get into, a pretty quick, easy and engaging read, and thought provoking enough to facilitate a good discussion.

My hardcover copy is up for grabs.